Field Service News issue 8

FIELD SERVICE NEWS Issue #8

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September/October 2015

THE AGE OF THE INDUSTRIAL INTERNET Sof tware | Apps | Hardware | Fleet Operations | Logistics | Technology | Management | Resources

Leader

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The age of the industrial internet...

So for me if changing the name of IoT to Industrial Internet is a sign that IoT is starting to mature then so be it.

And the fact is that it definitely has matured, and is taking seed within the field service industry.

Without giving too much away the evidence is clear in our research report (page 29) this issue, which just so happens to be assessing the appetite for IoT in field service.

The implementation of IoT is no longer just theory. It is happening and it is happening now. The shift from exciting emerging technology to a standard technology everybody is focussing on has been swift and no where was this more evidence than at the recent Field Service Fall event held in Atlanta, Georgia.

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t was only fairly recently that I first came across the phrase Industrial Internet...

Throughout the three days of the conference there were vast numbers of presentations, round-tables and just general chat in the breakout sessions all centred on the capability of IoT to change the way we operate our field service divisions.

If I’m a hundred percent honest I didn’t really know what it meant and had to have it explained to me. For those who like me hadn’t stumbled across this phrase before it’s basically a new name for the Internet of Things.

Yet according to Jonathan Massoud, Divisional Director & Market Analyst, with conference organisers WBR, this time last year folks were still just about getting their heads around the concept. (Read more on this on page 50.)

Or more specifically the application of IoT in a business driven environment, as opposed to the consumer world of smart home that IoT has now become synonymous with. Given that whilst utilising the same technology the discussions around IoT enabled Smart Homes is going to be very different to those around the application of IoT in industry then I guess it makes sense.

This year, it seems it is full steam ahead for a large number of companies, and those who aren’t currently implementing a IoT solution are on the whole starting to build their own IoT plans.

It’s probably also a sign that IoT is growing up. The first examples of IoT I came across were all predominantly novelty stuff. I remember being at a technology and marketing conference a few years ago and a company had a machine called Bubblinho on their stand. Basically it was the worlds first IoT based Bubble Blowing Machine. I distinctly recall thinking at the time how it was all very clever if a little bit pointless.

Around the same time I remember reading about a man who created a device that could allow him to feed his dog a dog biscuit by tweeting. Again very clever, but if your going to be away from home so much that you need the Internet of Things to feed your poor pooch then your not exactly the world’s best Dog Owner are you?

Yet those who know me, or indeed read my column will know that I am a huge proponent of IoT when it comes to its application in field service. I genuinely think that it will be a game changer. Not only that but I think that IoT (along with Augmented Reality) will be the technology that truly reshapes the way field service companies operate forever.

Of course one of the most exciting partnerships in this area at the moment is that of ServiceMax and PTC and between them I’m quietly confident that they can produce some fantastic IoT enabled FSM solutions.

“The implementation of IoT is no longer just theory. It is happening and it is happening now” In fact reference to IoT is peppered through this issue although not necessarily by design. Regular contributors Nick Frank of Frank Partners and Sumair Dutta of The Service Council both focus on IoT in their expert views this issue. It seems that everywhere we turn in our industry the Internet of Things is at the forefront of peoples minds.

The Age of The Industrial Internet is most definitely upon us and as with any change we must either embrace it or be left behind by those that do.

In the not too distant future companies will look back at pre IoT workflows in wonderment at just how we got along. Much like we look back today and try to remember what we did before mobile phones became prevalent. p3

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Contents

Contents: News:

Equity, connectivity and the return of Blackberry? News round-up ClickSoftware connect with their customers at recent UK event...

Xplore unveils XSLATE B10 full-feature 10in rugged tablet Father of IoT to speak at upcoming MaxLive field service event

page 8 page 10 page12 page 12

Features:

The Field Service Checklist Which technology is set to define our industry more than any other?

Are You Prepared to Meet Your 2016 Field Service KPIs? Modern life (Brought to you by a Van) The productivity paradox: is there a measurement problem?

Forward thinking - inteview with Marne Martin CEO ServicePower The differences between a customer problem and a problem customer IoT: Extending Enterprise Value with Service Data Research report: IoT in Field Service Hands On: Xplore Bobcat rugged tablet The re-invention of manufacturing is profoundly changing field service Wearable Technology: Fashion, Smart Clothes & the Future of Wearables Community Service Lone workers: managing their risk Southen comfort for field service leaders Case Study: Tesseract helps British Gas to expand and diversify Latest resources What Does a Toddler, a Grandmother, and a Technician have in common?

Industry Leaders Interview: Marne Martin, ServicePower

page 11 page 14 page 17 page 18 page 20 page 22 page 26 page 28 page 29 page 36 page 40 page 41 page 42 page 46 page 50 page 54 page 56 page 58

Expert View: Sumair Dutta, The Service Council

ard ing

Sumair Dutta of The Service Council explores the findings of their latest IoT research...

“The key is taking what we’ve done with some of the new technology, and then making sure we have integrated a great user experience ” - Marne Martin, CEO, ServicePower

Research Report: Is it time for IoT to become part of the field service landscape?

“Once you have given someone an instruction for work, whether it’s just popping down the shops for a pint of milk or to an appointment or a job or a site, you are responsible for their safety and their behaviour.”

- Giles Margerison, TomTom Telematics

research sponsored by:

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Marne Martin - page 22

Research report - page 29

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Loan Workers - Page 46

Advisory Panel

Bill Pollock, President Strategies for Growth SM, | Nick Frank, Consultant, Frank Partners | P r o f . A n d y N e e l y, D i r e c t o r C a m b r i d g e S e r v i c e A l l i a n c e | A l i sta i r C l i f fo rd - J o n e s , C EO L e a d e n t S o l t u i o n s T i m J o n e s , N o r t h e r n E u ro p e S e r v i c e M a n a g e r, Wa te rs

Contact Field Service News:

Field Service News is a 1927 Media Ltd publication. Some expert views are placed on a paid for basis Mail: 9 5 H i cks Ave nue | G reenford | Lon d on | U B6 8HB | Ph o n e: + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 1 3 3 1 9 2 7 p4

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S a l e s @ f i e l d s e r v i c e n e w s . c o m | Ed i t o r i a l @ f i e l d s e r v i c e n e w s . c o m | S u b s c r i p t i o n s @ f i e l d s e r v i c e n e w s . c o m

1927 Media

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Equity, connectivity and the return of Blackberry?

A round up of the biggest stories in field service across the last two months...

AT&T and Telogis form global partnership US communications network operator AT&T and Telogis, the connected vehicle technology provider, are to collaborate to offer integrated, reliable connectivity solutions for businesses around the world.

More @ http://fs-ne.ws/T6yek

share his driving knowledge. Delegates will also have the opportunity to be put in their drivers’ shoes by taking to the MIRA City Course in a Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV) fitted with the latest telematics technology.

Field Nation secures equity investment

More @ http://fs-ne.ws/T6ynY

Telogis provides intelligent data solutions to companies including Ford and Volvo and with AT&T will be able to implement an advanced network solution to deliver a reliable, highly secure stream of data nearly anywhere in the world.

Field Nation, the US company which has developed an on-line marketplace matching independent service contractors with project management demands, has secured a $30 million investment led

by Susquehanna Growth Equity.

The AT&T service management platform allows Telogis to easily manage the data, devices and services that support its customers. AT&T also is working with Telogis to help with over the air updates and provide unique split billing capabilities.

Field Nation has been self-funding since its launch in 2008. It has reported rapid growth of 65% a year and during the past year it has connected more than 1,000 organisations with its network of over 65,000 registered contractors.

“We’re offering Telogis a complete wireless network that enables two-way, real-time data communication between the vehicle and office,” said Chris Penrose, senior vice president, AT&T Internet of Things (IoT) Solutions. “We look forward to driving new innovative services together in the fleet marketplace and offering true global solutions to our mutual customers.”

More @ http://fs-ne.ws/T6y9r

Geotab sells 150,000 telematics devices Certification by US network operator Verizon has helped push sales of Geotab’s plug-and-play telematics device to 150,000 in six months.

Sales of Geotab‘s G07 plug-and-play telematics device are soaring, with the Canadian company reporting 150,000 sold in the six months from February to June, mainly in North America.

The GO7 is a plug-and-play device that connects to the vehicle OBD port, collecting data from the engine, drivetrain, instrument cluster and other relevant subsystems to maximise productivity and minimise downtime. Appeal has been boosted by the device being certified for use on the Verizon wireless network, says Geotab.

Network operator certification is a major milestone in the US, says the company, because it enables the solution to be sold into a larger pool of potential p8

customers, such as those that require specific geographic coverage or that prefer a particular network operator.

The company’s on-line marketplace connects independent service contractors and companies needing to get on-site work done. It allows service companies and distributed enterprises to directly procure, manage, pay, report and optimise labour requirements.

More @ http://fs-ne.ws/T6yit

New field service conference to focus on driver engagement A new conference, organised by telematics platform provider Microlise, aimed squarely at field service and van fleet managers is to focus on all aspects of driver engagement. Field Service News is pleased to be a sponsor for the event.

The inaugural Microlise Field Service & Fleet Conference 2015 is to take place on 4 November at the MIRA Proving Ground in Warwickshire.

Speakers from BskyB, FTA Van Excellence, the DVSA and the Central Motorway Police Group are confirmed to speak.

The conference will be interactive, with delegates learning about new technologies and how new techniques, such as gamification, are improving service levels, safety and reducing the environmental impact and operating costs of their fleets.

In the afternoon, former Top Gear “Stig” Ben Collins will host a workshop in which he will

Contractors skill sets are key for customer satisfaction, clicksoftware survey reveals Skill sets rather than price are the important factor for businesses when choosing contractors, a survey

by ClickSoftware has revealed.

A survey by ClickSoftware conducted with 250 UK business decision makers has found that skill sets are the most important factor for 30% of businesses when choosing third party subcontractors. Just 4% of UK businesses consider cost to be the most important factor when making a procurement decision.

The report: “Field Service Best Practice: Don’t let subcontractors subtract from the bottom line” said that while getting the job done to a high standard is the primary concern for businesses subcontracting work, increasing emphasis is being placed on the experience the end customer has in completing the job.

Of those surveyed, 98% also had some metric for customer satisfaction measurement. “With price no longer a primary concern when making a procurement decision, businesses must be able to demonstrate a high level of customer experience when bidding for work,” was one of the report’s conclusions.

More @ http://fs-ne.ws/T6ytP

TomTom Telematics pilots connected cars TomTom Telematics is using its fleet management expertise to develop connected car services.

The first pilot is with a leading European vehicle importer in a national pilot across Holland, leading European car importer Pon’s Automobiel Handel will deploy connected car technology to deliver real-time information about their vehicles’ status and performance to customers and dealerships. The company will use TomTom Telematics’ cloud-based services platform and its

News Round Up

mobile app development expertise that draws upon vehicle dashboard information.

“TomTom Telematics has more than 15 years of experience providing data insights for fleet management,” said Thomas Schmidt, Managing Director. “Developments in connected car technology are now opening up new opportunities for us to underpin innovative solutions for consumers and the wider automotive industry.”

The partnership with Pon will enable car owners to receive feedback and advice about their vehicles on their smartphones – from dashboard indicators, driver performance information, mileage and battery level to car location and door-lock status. Alongside many other features, driver score rankings will allow for competition between drivers and help them to save fuel, drive more safely.

ServicePower launches Nexus Field Service

data is an overriding priority.

Leading mobile workforce management company ServicePower Technologies Plc has launched Nexus FS, an enterprise-class cloudbased field service management solution for any sized service business that incorporates comprehensive mobile dispatch functionality.

By acquiring the company, BlackBerry will expand its ability to offer a unified, secure mobility platform with applications for any mobile device on any operating system.

NEXUS FS (Field Service) is designed to provide service businesses of any size an enterprisequality cloud-based field service management solution with a comprehensive mobile application.

It incorporates work order management, mobile dispatching to field based resources, real-time schedule monitoring through an interactive Gantt, timesheet reporting, location monitoring and reporting, asset and parts capabilities, and user configurable maintenance, all in the cloud, with fast and easy data set-up and a modern and easy user interface.

More @http://fs-ne.ws/T6yBF

Software AG integrates with ServiceMax Remote asset monitoring specialist Software AG is integrating its Digital Business Platform with ServiceMax’s field service management solution, enabling customers to turn remote asset monitoring events into actionable field service requests.

The NEXUS FS mobile dispatch component has new features such as rules-based, user configurable forms delivered on a job-by-job basis, allowing organisations and technicians to quickly adapt to job conditions, improving both efficiency and productivity, while enhancing the customer experience.

More @ http://fs-ne.ws/T6yTW

Software AG customers currently using the predictive maintenance solution on its Digital Business Platform can now access ServiceMax’s field service platform.

The Digital Business Platform connects to any sensored gateway, pulling all equipment sensor data, performing real-time analysis and generating customized alerts. These alerts are then sent to the ServiceMax platform where they are turned into work orders. Once created, the work orders are delivered to service technicians in the field.

The integrated offering allows companies seeking to increase the effectiveness of its maintenance services to do so with one integrated platform that combines best of breed technology and expertise.

Software AG’s solution for predictive maintenance exploits the Internet of Things by continuously analysing real-time equipment sensor data via machine monitoring to understand when maintenance will be required. The location of technicians are matched to replacement and repair equipment available and job completion time to identify the best technician available to perform the needed service during a scheduled downtime.

More @ http://fs-ne.ws/T6yKV

Good Technology serves more than 6,200 organizations, including commercial banks, aerospace and defence firms. BlackBerry is the mobility partner of all G7 governments and is strong in managed healthcare, investment services, and oil and gas sectors.

The company will bring complementary capabilities and technologies to BlackBerry, including secure applications and containerisation that protects end user privacy.

With 64 percent of activations coming from Apple iOS devices, Good complements BlackBerry’s own OS. The proven Good Dynamics platform provides app-level encryption, advanced data loss prevention and secure communication between applications. The platform has more than 2,000 independent software vendor and custom applications.

More @ http://fs-ne. ws/T6z4h

BlackBerry buys MDM vendor Good Technology In a development that strengthens its leading position as a provider of secure mobile enterprise solutions, BlackBerry has announced that it is buying mobile device management vendor Good Technology for $425 million in cash.

BlackBerry might have a dwindling share of the mobile handset market, losing its once dominant position to Apple and Android-powered smartphones, but it still has a strong presence in government and in enterprises where security of devices and

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News

ClickSoftware connect with their customers at recent UK event...

The recent ClickConnect event hosted in the wonderful setting of Coombe Abbey Hotel, Warwickshire was a hotbed of discussion around the future of field service management...

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lickConnect, ClickSoftware’s global ClickSoftware customer community, is run across the world to help customers network, share experiences, listen, learn and engage directly with the wider ClickSoftware team.

ClickConnect UK, the regional ClickSoftware customer conference run as part of the ClickConnect programme, was held at Coombe Abbey, Warwickshire on 9th and 10th September 2015.

The theme of the event was built around the company’s mission to enable its customers to “Master their moment” - to enable field employees to become brand ambassadors and perform their jobs with the highest level of professionalism, efficiency, and effectiveness.

As part of the conference, National Grid representatives hosted seven different round table discussions, covering topics such as “Emergency Scheduling”, “Appointment Booking” and “Innovation in Field Service” and also a site visit to the National Grid Gas Distribution centre in Hinckley.

Here, ClickSoftware customers had a chance to see how National Grid use ClickSchedule to manage their complex services while meeting strictly defined targets and KPIs.

This year, ClickConnect UK was supported by National Grid who have been a ClickSoftware customer for 10 years.

In addition, they showed how working with partner DNASTREAM, they have introduced the Rapid Launch approach to new version adoption and new user on-boarding to drastically cut product training requirements.

In a typical year, National Grid will respond to over 500,000 reported gas escapes and connect around 20,000 new customers to the network as well as supporting four gas distribution networks in the West Midlands, North West, East of England and North London.

This means they have a real need for an efficient,

On the second day of the event ClickSoftware were joined by Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief of Field Service News who presented the findings of their latest research project exploring trends in field service of Cloud based Field Service Management Systems which was undertaken in partnership with ClickSoftware.

Field Service Funnies...

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ife never goes the way it should. But at Field Service News we’re pretty sure that for those of us working out in the field there are always more challenges than most folks have to deal with.

Thanks to the good team at ServiceMax and cartoonist Jerry King now your epic field service fails can be immortalised in cartoon form and we can all laugh at...we mean with, you to!

sponsored by:

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effective and automated scheduling and dispatch solution that can also be integrated with their wider business solutions (including SAP).

Across the two days the event had a varied mix of presentations, networking, open forums plus the site visit to the National Grid and the innovative approach to the conference was appreciated by everyone.

A selection of feedback from the delegates included: “Fantastic event, well organised and flowed well” “A quick note of appreciation for the hard work that must have gone into it” “A super event, very honest and collaborative” “Great platform to discuss with other companies about ClickSoftware” “I had a great time and would recommend this event/events like this to all!”

“The networking with others was really useful and it was great to catch up with individuals involved in our implementation” “Round table discussions were very good - also as facilitators for networking” “A great two days. Having the chance to speak with other customer over the round tables was really useful”

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Expert View: Marne Martin, Service Power

The Field Service Checklist Marne Martin CEO of ServicePower outlines the key checklist you should be reviewing to make sure your field service business is running at optimum...

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he field service industry is exceptionally diverse and surprisingly complex. Providers vary in size, geographical coverage, services offered, parts required to conduct repairs, inspections, installations, and maintenance or facility management.

In today’s competitive world, customer satisfaction is considered the number one indicator of success, even as productivity, cost, and parts inventory management remain essential.

Workforce management software (WFM) is the technology cornerstone on which the success of the operations relies. New technologies, like social, mobile, analytics and cloud, IoT and M2M data, also impact the industry, presenting new ways to perform work, improve first time fix rates, and new business opportunities.

Technology How does a field service business select the best WFM technology? What must service operations consider to ensure measurable success?

WFM solutions differ greatly, as discussed last month, so it is imperative to consider your requirements early to maximize the likelihood that what is deployed delivers the functionality you require, at the costs you expect. This checklist will help you build a foundation strong enough to maximize ROI and improve customer service levels.

Budget - WFM implementation and maintenance costs vary. Determine if a license or a transactional SaaS model is best for your organization, evaluate the fully loaded costs, and make sure to have a partner that is willing to evolve with your changing needs.

Business Complexity - The more complex your business, the more important true optimization software, like ServiceScheduling, is to create the least costly schedules and highest customer satisfaction as the same time.

Key Performance Indicators - Agree on KPIs early and collect baseline data to measure improvements against.

Software Deployment - To SaaS or not to SaaS? Decide if you want to deploy and manage an on premise solution or rely on vendor expertise.

Back Office Integration - Increasing first time fix rates requires that technicians arrive with the skills, parts, and collaborative mobile dispatch software to support all tasks onsite. Decide during design what data, software and people access are required to support field work.

Integration Execution - Decide if your IT team can support a WFM integration or if a system integrator is required to do the heavy lifting.

Training - Don’t forget training. Staff must be trained to use the software as, how and when intended.

Continuous Improvement - Stay abreast of new technology and changes in your own business. Ask for advice incorporating latest releases.

Process and People are as Important as Technology Create processes and people policies as part of the WFM deployment. Technology cannot alone create a successful field service operation. The underlying processes and people create success.

Process - When developing an evolving operation, fundamental processes must be designed and implemented to ensure smooth operations and healthy ROI. Work Scheduling - Work scheduling is not routing.

It is the process and tools used to create basic staff work schedules: shifts, breaks, lunches, PTO, and non-schedulable time such as training or vehicle maintenance.

Business Objectives - Make sure your business objectives are clear and your business partners are engaged and ready for any change management required.

Forecasting - Demand forecasting goes hand in hand with labor supply forecasting. Invest in tools to plot demand, geographical and seasonal.

Business intelligence tools are great options for demand forecasting.

Security Requirements - In this age of hackers and identity theft, pick a solution that ensures your customer, employee and business data are safe.

Management Plan - Define roles, responsibilities and tasks. Create performance management plans so adherence and success can be measured, and

rewarded or corrected. Managers and employees thrive when expectations are clear. Discipline is less painful when plans are defined, published and applied evenly.

Parts and Equipment Management - Define processes for procuring, warehousing and allocating parts to jobs. Define accounting process for tracking distributor invoices and returns to ensure credits and charges are correct. Define use policy for company assets, like trucks and tools.

Enforce the policy with tracking technology to prevent misuse or fraud.

People - People are the most critical element of any field service operation. Create people, processes and policy to “sustain and maintain” your ROI goals.

Create a Task List - Define daily tasks. Employees accomplish more and feel more accomplished when they understand what needs to be done each day.

Create a Playbook - A playbook is critical and often overlooked. It is an operational manual which defines policies that dictate employee interactions and utilization of WFM software and operational processes which support objectives and KPIs, driving operational excellence and productivity.

Plan and execute the ride along - Once tasks and expectations are defined and understood, ride along or sit with employees to understand reality.

Identify what is going on in the field, call center or warehouse, to identify potential opportunities for improvement.

Validation Inspect your expectations! Perform customer surveys. Audit work performed.

Customer satisfaction cannot be assumed simply because a task list and schedule have been completed. Validate process and policy adherence to ensure employee success and customer satisfaction.

Manage Expansion - Don’t overlook the ‘fiefdom effect’. Policy, process and technology compliance and utilization must be consistent and measurable across the entire organization to objectives are met.

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News

Xplore unveils XSLATE B10 full-feature 10in rugged tablet Texas rugged computing specialist Xplore Technologies launch their latest fully featured rugged tablet with an impressive set of specs to match it’s rugged rating...

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plore Technologies Corp has unveiled the XSLATE B10, a full-featured 10in rugged tablet designed for the toughest environments.

The tablet comes with eight ports, an IP65 rating and C1D2/ATEX certification.

“After spending a day on the job with the XSLATE B10, you’ll understand why this fully featured tablet PC sets a new standard in ruggedness and connectivity,” said Mark Holleran, Xplore Technologies President and COO. The B10 is designed to meet and exceed the needs of customers across a wide range of vertical industries, and the harshest workplaces, from

frozen tarmacs to sweltering oil rigs.

Across telecommunications, manufacturing, transportation, distribution, construction or field service, businesses now have access to a fully rugged, lightweight tablet with all the ports and battery life necessary to stay active in the field.

display and a projective 10-point touch capacitive touchscreen input with glove and wet modes plus a Wacom pen digitizer and active pen.

Key features include: eight built-in ports, four of them sealed even with port covers open; two True Serial port connections for access to legacy equipment; an Intel Core i5 processor, upgradeable to i7 vPro ; ultra-fast 4G LTE broadband, 802.11ac W and Bluetooth 4.0 and USB 3.0 connections; and RJ-45 Gigabit Ethernet cable connection.

Optional productivity-boosting accessories include a removable companion keyboard, office or vehicle docking stations, kickstand, a second hot swappable battery to extend system runtime to 20 hours and an integrated barcode scanner.

The B10 has a WXGA rugged IPS LCD backlit

There’s a 8 megapixel rear and 2 megapixel front camera, with xCature Pro camera application.

Shopping for rugged tablets? Check out our review of the Xplore’s top selling rugged tablet the Bobcat on page 36

Father of IoT to speak at upcoming MaxLive field service event As the ServiceMax Max Live event draws near an exciting name has been added to the agenda that is sure to make the event a true highlight in the field service calendar this year…

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eld in Paris from the 2nd to the 4th of November, the event brings together field service professionals to discuss how technology is driving field service, what are the key trends that are emerging and how can we harness them to drive further efficiencies in our own field service delivery.

At last year’s event Field Service News Editor Kris Oldland was impressed by the varying range of professionals and experts both speaking and in attendance.

“What has really struck me about the group here,” Oldland commented, “is that firstly it is a really broad mix, with companies as large as Sony through to small family run companies with less than ten engineers, yet they are often facing similar challenges and those challenges are as real for a local SME as they are for your household name multi-nationals”

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“What has been really impressive about the ServiceMax approach, that has been really evident here at MaxLive, is that they are listening to their client’s pain points, whether they be SME or Enterprise, and are reactive to that.”

“There is a real community feel amongst the companies here, and with a fantastic list of guest speakers, there is a very positive vibe amongst the delegates as we look to what the future holds for field service.”

At this year’s event however, there is now one added name to the speaker list that will surely drive interest even higher.

none is more keenly anticipated than in how it will impact field service.

Therefore Ashton’s experience and insight is sure to be extremely well received and it will be also provide an interesting backdrop to the recent research project undertaken by ServiceMax, PTC and Field Service News which is exploring the impact of IoT in the field service industries. The findings of this research can be found in our special report which starts on page 29.

That is Kevin Ashton, often referred to as the Father of The Internet of Things, who will be giving a keynote presentation.

With ServiceMax and PTC announcing a partnership earlier this year the two companies are perfectly placed to bring together IoT and field service management and IoT is certain to be high on the agenda at Maxlive in November alongside a host of other key topics for field service professionals.

Of course IoT is predicted to have a huge impact in a number of different industries, but perhaps

To register to attend the event visit: http://fs-ne.ws/T6y29

Search oneserve to find our more...

A Smarter Way to Work

That’s why we have integrated our Analytics platform throughout our Service Management Software; giving you actionable, real-time knowledge from across your business.

Sometimes, you need to look at things differently to make sure you’re seeing the BIG PICTURE...

Which technology is set to define our industry more than any other?

Field Service has long been an industry open to embracing the latest tech to drive itself forward, but what technology will have the greatest impact in the long term in the way we operate our field service divisions?

As technology becomes ever increasingly intertwined with the evolution of business in these early decades of the twenty first century, the importance of identifying the right technologies that can drive a business forward is huge.

How do we tell the technologies that will genuinely improve our bottom line apart from those that may be either just passing fads (such as the clamour for Google Glass perhaps?) or technologies that become so over-hyped, that we see unrealistic expectations laid at their door, so when initial Beta versions are launched they ultimately seem doomed to failure - making it harder to win over sceptics once the technology finally does mature enough to be significantly deployed (once again… Glass anyone?)

We have seen huge examples of companies backing the right technology, embracing it, building it into their DNA and becoming massive successes.

Salesforce saw the potential of the Cloud and reinvented the global CRM marketplace; MAN Trucks UK embraced telematics to create the Trucknology Generation and saw revenue grow by 1000% within a decade.

Then there is Amazon who through a studied focus on developing Big Data based technologies and algorithms, have evolved from being an online shopping portal with ‘a smile on the box’ to being not only “the” online shopping portal, but also “the” name in enterprise Cloud solutions, and perhaps the only real competitor to the Apple and Google duopoly of digital music and film distribution via their

impressive Prime service. But it is not only the household names that can take advantage of technology.

Take Service2 for example, a local HVAC and Gas Appliance maintenance firm based in the North of England who were a Field Service News case study earlier this year.

Through the implementation of field service management software they are now in a position to have far greater grasp on their P&L, deliver a superior level of service to their customers, and are perfectly primed for rapid expansion.

For them field service management technology is a massive enabler and key driver for their business.

Another fantastic example of a smaller company placing technology at the heart of their development path was shared with us by Nick Frank, Principal of Frank Consulting on a recent Field Service News webinar.

Nick described how Northern Irish business LISTO have been able to combine an understanding of customers needs, some out of the box thinking and innovative use of existing technologies and they have been able to help SME’s shape not only their own futures but seriously disrupt their relative markets whilst doing so, causing new benchmarks and customer expectations.

Again companies being fully empowered by technology to grow their solutions.

So in such an environment where

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technology can be a genuine key differentiator for companies both big and small, the technology analysts such as Aberdeen and Gartner play a huge role in helping us assess what technologies we should be exploring, researching and investing in to help us become leaders in our field.

Indeed the annual Gartner hype cycle has become one of the most hotly anticipated publications within industry, as a barometer initially of which technologies were gaining the most attention across global media and businesses alike, it now also incorporates an indication of maturity for each technology listed as well to help us further understand where these technologies sit in the road map for the future business operations Gartner predicts we should potentially be adopting.

However, the rapid evolution of technology in what many are referring to as a golden age of information, is progressing at such a rapid speed that even Gartner are unable to keep up sometimes it seems.

Having dominated business technology conversations for the last two years, Big Data disappeared from this year’s Hype Cycle entirely. The reason, according to Gartner Analyst Betsy Burton is that “Big Data has quickly moved over the Peak of Inflated Expectations and has become prevalent in our lives”.

And whilst this is almost certainly true, the fact is that Big Data remains a mystery to many

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outside of the Data Scientist illuminati who are redefining the way business operates today.

As Dave Hart, ServiceMax Vice President of Global Customer Transformation commented in a previous Field Service News podcast, “Big Data is like teenage sex, everyone talks about it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, but nobody really knows how to do it.”

Yet the fact is the ability to build easily configurable dashboards, that give field service directors and their managers access to the vast swathes of data generated by a field service team is high on the list of any company currently exploring a new field service management system.

As John Cooper, Head of IT and Workflow Solutions in Sony’s Professional Solutions explained in a recent exclusive Field Service News interview “We have this dream of the account managers turning up at customer sites and being completely clued in with all the stuff that’s happened in a nice simple to understand, graphical way.”

So they don’t need to get into technical complexity but they know what we’ve done for the customers, they know of any live issues and they’re not going to get ambushed with you’ve got this problem or that problem.”

Such open flow of data and more importantly the insight it yields, is of course powered by Big Data. So whilst the

technical whirrings of this monumental technology may not be fully understood by those outside of niche Data Scientist circles, the reality is that its impact is very much being felt, even if it is through its output and application rather than a more tangible, physical everyday sense.

However, is Big Data the most important technology changing the way business operates today?

Well, in the sphere of field service there are justified claims for a number of other recent technologies.

Without doubt one of the most important developments that has truly revolutionised our industries and the way field service operates, is the leap forward mobile computing - pushed dramatically forward by the rise in prominence of the Smart Phone, and the Iphone in particular.

Then there is the Cloud.

Certainly the rapid rise of field service provider ServiceMax is clear evidence of the industry’s need for and appetite for cloud based field service management systems.

Whilst many vendors offer Cloud based Field Service Management solutions today there is no denying the ServiceMax story is certainly one of dramatic and rapid success.

In an industry where the combination of huge amounts of coding to develop a product

robust enough to be deemed suitable for ‘mission critical’ operational control sits against relatively low costs per user (in comparison to other IT led products) it is almost impossible for new vendors to penetrate the space.

Yet ServiceMax have not only done so but have rapidly established themselves as a leading player within the market within a space of even years.

Indeed ServiceMax’s phenomenal growth is in part tied to their strong relationship with Cloud pioneer Salesforce.

In an interview with Field Service News, ServiceMax COO Scott Berg commented “If you think of what it would have taken for us to launch a data centre and secure it, to build all the platform capabilities and redundancy, also that some of our first 12 customers were in the Middle East and Europe and there we were with two founders selling everything themselves out of northern California… how could that be right?”

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“While Big Data, Cloud and Enterprise Mobility have allowed field service companies to optimise their work-flows, it is the Internet of Things, that has the potential to completely realign those workflows, changing the dynamics of field service forever”

“All because of the global reach and the global acceptance level of the Salesforce.com platform.

So yes it was very important early on.”

However, whilst their relationship with Salesforce.com undoubtedly opened doors for the California based company, the truth is the appetite for Cloud as a platform for field service management systems was clearly there and not being fully exploited.

Our own recent research into the Cloud highlights this also with 86% of field service companies either being on, or considering a move to the Cloud for their next iteration of their field service management software.

So again as with mobile computing there is a strong argument to be made for the Cloud being the technology to have had the biggest impact on field service in recent times.

With data being provided by the device itself to indicate that a fault is developing, the engineer can not only arrive armed in advance with the knowledge of what that fault is, but also will in many cases be able to rectify the fault before it escalates to a point where the device reaches critical malfunction that stops it from carrying out it’s function.

So not only will field service companies be able to direct their engineers to the most critical jobs, not only will the engineers spend less time resolving each job (with first time fix rates soaring) but also crucially companies will be able to deliver far greater up time to their customers.

However, perhaps the most sensible viewpoint would be that it is the emergence of all three of these technologies at the same time that is the true driving factor behind the development of new field service management solutions that are delivering ever greater efficiencies and productivity levels amongst field service companies.

This in turn can lead companies to adopting an outcome based solutions approach, whereby they are no longer selling a product and then the maintenance of that product, but selling a solution.

Indeed the most sophisticated current field service management systems all boast inclusion and utilisation of Big Data, Enterprise Mobility and Cloud computing.

There are of course numerous examples of companies adopting this business model, perhaps the most famous of all being Rolls Royce’s Power by The Hour contact whereby they no longer charge a flat fee for a jumbo jet engine, but instead charge for every hour one of their customers’ planes is in flight.

Yet there is one other technology that has the potential to surpass the impact of all three of the above combined.

For while Big Data, Cloud and Enterprise Mobility have allowed field service companies to optimise their work-flows, it is the Internet of Things, that has the potential to completely realign those workflows, changing the dynamics of field service forever.

The often cited holy grail for field service companies is ‘the first time fix’ and as more and more devices in industry become connected (Gartner predicts 25BN connected devices by 2020) the impact of IoT on Field Service will be truly massive. (See our IoT research on page 29) Why? Well, connected devices allow field service companies to move away from the costly traditional break-fix model of the past and into a far more efficient preventative maintenance model.

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Yet unlike, preventative maintenance plans of ‘dumb’ or non-connected devices, which require often unnecessary scheduled checks by a field service engineer, preventative maintenance of connected devices will mean that not only will engineers only be sent out to provide maintenance when a fault is detected but they will, in the main be sent out to that particular job with an understanding of what the fault is, and with the tools or parts they need to complete the job.

This is of course a seismic shift in business thinking and one that puts field service at the very heart of businesses operations if it is to be successfully deployed.

Yet through the advent of IoT it is becoming a more and more plausible and attractive route - one of the key arguments for moving to what is referred to as a Servitization business model is the opportunity to generate far greater profits.

So whilst the big three of Cloud, Enterprise Mobility and Big Data have helped field service reach new heights of efficiency in the form of modern field service management solutions, IoT truly has the potential to redefine the way our businesses operate on a fundamental level, and it’s impact will not only improve field service operations, but also place that at the centre of this new industry paradigm.

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Expert View: Tom Bowe, IFS

Are You Prepared to Meet Your 2016 Field Service KPIs? As our focus begins to shift towards next year planning it is important that we are able to assess and interpret the data we have gathered across the year, but your data is only as good as its application writes Tom Bowe of IFS...

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t’s that time of year again, preparing budgets and setting goals for next year, even though it probably seems like just yesterday you were doing so for 2015.

Soon, if you haven’t already, you will be gathering data from this year like volumes and revenues to plan what’s next for your field service organisation in 2016.

If you have an integrated, or best-of-breed field service solution, ideally the data you have collected from the field, and your customers, will help you navigate your decisions.

But does all your research and planning apply to the real world? Do you need to do complicated calculations to attempt to understand capacity, resourcing and demand?

2015 saw another year of field service growth, with more organisations applying IoT practices and other technological advances to help cut costs, increase efficiencies, and ensure customer satisfaction.

More data than ever before was being fed from the customer and the field to backend systems. But your data is only as good as its application.

What if you could know, as close to real life as possible, what resources you would need, and where, to meet your 2016 field service KPIs? What if you were given visibility into the success of your predetermined KPIs, and suggestions for improvement?

Imagine having an interactive tool at your fingertips that would allow you to run multiple real-life field service scenarios simultaneously.

Imagine that same tool being able to store all your results and present them in a printable dashboard that you could take to management.

Such a tool does exist, and we call it the WISE (what-if scenario explorer).

This easy-to-navigate forecasting and planning tool forecasts your resources based on your predicted demand; new contracts, possible acquisitions, and

shifts in business. It allows you to drill down into the resulting schedules to see what the real-time schedule would look like.

So why does this all matter? Field service is an ever-shifting and highly demanding industry.

It ebbs and flows with seasonal changes, shifts in demand, and multiple other factors so if there is so much potential change then why bother?

By its very nature a forecast is always wrong – it intrinsically contains some degree of error because it is based on many factors including past performance, future unknowns, confidence levels and statistical extrapolation and correlations of this data.

By automatically seeing where your technicians should be located based on demand, you can ensure your technicians aren’t travelling unnecessary distances The skill therefore is to build a forecast that’s as close to being accurate and believable as possible thus minimising the margin of error. With any forecasting errors minimised, the impact on your KPIs becomes more predictable.

Here are some of the Key Performance Indicators that can be positively affected by scenario planning and forecasting:

Headcount (Having the Right Number of People, When and Where They are Needed) Run real-life scenarios by feeding the WISE your organisation’s data and see whether you should add or reallocate resources.

Response Time (Planning to Respond Reliably within the SLA or Appointment Window) The WISE will predict your response times to service calls and will also calculate the number of SLAs you will meet with your current resources. It will then make suggestions to help you increase your SLA hit rate.

Customer Satisfaction (Directly Correlated to #1 and #2) Scenario planning and forecasting provides territory balancing to ensure your service areas have proper coverage. Not only will you be able to more easily achieve your SLAs but you will also be able to provide new customers with reliable first time service.

Operating Costs (Reducing Overtime and Travel Costs) With a forecasting tool that can not only tell you the outcome of your current operations but help you determine what organisational changes are needed to meet your demands; you have the ability to reduce your upcoming costs.

By automatically seeing where your technicians should be located based on demand, you can ensure your technicians aren’t travelling unnecessary distances.

A scenario planning tool can be used to help establish goals and expectations for the fiscal year, but it can also be used for short term planning as well.

It can help your organisation understand how to best manage new important contracts, proactively plan for changes in seasonal demand, and more.

When you start budgeting for 2016, rather than wonder why you are bothering, instead, reverse the mentality and question “why not? Using WISE could have a notable impact on your service delivery metrics and bottom line.

If you need to add resources to meet demand, the WISE will show you where regionally you should be hiring. It also provides territory balancing to ensure your service areas have proper coverage. p17

M odern L ife

(Brought to you by a van ) I

t’s time the importance of vans to the UK economy was more widely recognised and that all companies, including service organisations, paid more attention to safety, quality and compliance, says Mark Cartwright, head of the Van Excellence programme at the UK’s Freight Transport Association.

The economic and social value of van LCV, or van fleets, in delivering both GDP and essential services, and the way in which LCV users shape and enhance modern life in the UK is undervalued.

The Freight Transport Association has been campaigning to raise awareness of these vital tools in the UK economy since 2010, with its Van Excellence scheme.

Some interesting statistics emerged in the FTA’s2015 Van Excellence Report. There are 3.6 million vans in the UK in 2015: 1.63 million are registered to companies, and 1.8 million to individuals. Van use in the UK is expected to almost double by 2040 compared to 2010.

Van ownership is diffuse, with only 9% of vehicles in the hands of the biggest fleets. Hence, while the largest fleets in the market belong to those companies at the pinnacle of each sector, much of each sector’s work is done by progressively

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smaller sub-contractor fleets.

O p e r at i o n a l c h a l l e n g e s

Many sectors in the UK economy are vandependent - their principal economic activities could not be conducted without the use of vans.

While LCVs are not therefore a direct source of wealth generation, they are a key facilitator of wealth generation.

All fleets suffer, to some extent, from the public perception of ‘white van man’. Few fleet managers feel there is any national or public recognition of the vital services carried out by their drivers, nor the economic and social value underpinned by the vehicles they operate

The largest van-dependent sectors in the UK economy are construction, engineering and utilities, whose activities very often overlap in the development and maintenance of the national infrastructure; and the postal and parcels sector.

LCVs are primarily used in non-transport businesses. This gives rise to many challenges for the business, the fleet departments involved, and the general public.

Only 205,000 people identify as ‘van driver’ in the UK’s Office of National Statistics on employment figures.

Most van drivers identify with their core trade or activity and not as professional drivers.

Nonetheless, driving is an essential part of their job and their skill set.

Regulation is not lacking in this area, but understanding and professionalism is. More regulation would be ill-suited to the extremely diverse range of operations in this market and the agility and versatility they require.

It is incumbent upon those running van fleets to protect the public safety and to fulfil their dutyof-care obligations to their employees. Driving is often the biggest work-related risk that their employees face.

To put this in context, police officers and fire fighters in the UK are less likely to die in the line of duty than they are on their journey into work each morning.

This road risk extends, of course, to all road users, whether professional drivers or not. By training those who drive for work in roadworthiness and safe-driving practice, employers extend that

Want to know more? Join Field Service News, Microlise, The FTA and former Stig Ben Collins at an exclusive event on Achieving Driver Engagement.

November 4th, Warwickshire, England. Visit: fs-ne.ws/T6h44 to register now!

Van Excellence is an industry-led audit scheme run by FTA on behalf of all LCV operators. The audit incudes standards and methods of fleet management which its major members consider best practice. Van Excellence now has 103 accredited companies, covering 125,000 vehicles.

Van Excellence has been embraced by the industry as a valuable initiative to enhance standards of van operator compliance and celebrate those who demonstrate excellence.

It has succeeded in showing that the consistent achievement of high standards of operation is not only possible but commercially advantageous in the sub-3.5 tonne vehicle sector, even though LCVs are not formally licensed and escape most of the specific requirements imposed on trucks.

Van Excellence is open to van operators of all sizes and business sectors, including non FTA members. Courses offered include the Certificate of Excellence for Van Operators and the new Van Excellence Certificate of Driver Competence, which has an option for driver qualification.

It provides a best practice framework showing how to run vans safely and efficiently. It provides operators with a process to seek independent accreditation against these standards along with access to support guides and training.

Van Excellence is facilitated by FTA but its direction, standards and integrity comes from the industry with an independent Governance Group with van operators at the helm.

Van Excellence members describe the following benefits: • • • • • • •

It provides a structure for fleet management.

Its best-practice recommendations lead to safety improvements and cost reduction, which often go hand in hand.

It leads to carbon reduction through better fleet utilisation.

Van Excellence provides a forum within which fleet managers can share and learn from best practice.

Van Excellence courses have helped engage and inform the wider business about its use of vehicles.

Drivers become more attentive, take ownership of their vehicle responsibilities, and take pride in the ‘Van Excellence’ sticker.

Some managers report better driver-retention because staff feel more valued and protected.

greater safety into the wider community.

Major compliance challenges include: • a lack of transport understanding among staff • a lack of transport awareness among decision-makers • the failure of those highly aware of risk in another field to recognise • driving as a work-related risk; • the difficulties of managing a geographically dispersed fleet; • a lack of recognition that driving is a professional activity.

Commercial challenges include: • an intense focus on cost, exacerbated by the fact that the fleet is usually a cost centre and not a profit centre; • the risk to their vehicles from fraudulent insurance claims; • the difficulty in maintaining training benefits in sectors with a high turnover of drivers .

Despite the high standards of many van fleets, the UK van parc overall suffers from a lack of legal compliance, and from owners, managers and drivers who show a poor understanding of their responsibilities.

Vans stopped by the Government’s DVSA enforcement agency show an 89% overloading rate, and a 50% first-time failure rate in the annual vehicle safety test. .

Unlike the heavily regulated HGV sector, professional fleet-management is generally only found in the largest of van fleets.

a frequent lack of operator awareness and understanding.

Corporate fleet departments can also be isolated and misunderstood by the core businesses they serve. Professional fleet managers within non-transport environments make the following observations:

Without a statutory framework for management and without transport backgrounds or relationships, many businesses are not aware of their compliance responsibilities.

•

FTA believes the sheer diversity of the business and operational models that vans support makes regulation an unwieldy tool for furthering safety.

•

There is already comprehensive regulation which outlines the standards of roadworthiness, driver capability and driving practice in the UK, including statutory instruments such as the domestic drivers’ hours regulations, or the guidelines and mandatory rules of the Highway Code.

C o r p o r at e r e s p o n s i b i l i t y The issue is not a lack of regulation but rather

•

•

•

The business, often from board level to drivers, lacks an understanding of legal compliance regarding vehicles.

Many drivers have been trained in risk assessment for their core craft but do not recognise driving as a work-related risk.

Drivers do not see driving as an important or skilled part of their job. leets are under extreme cost scrutiny, but often cannot convey to financial controllers the necessity of examining whole-life costs, efficiency or safety implications.

LCV operations, however professional, also suffer the stigma of ‘white van man’ and a lack of public appreciation of their critical role in the UK economy and UK communities.

Modern life is brought to you by vans; safety, quality and compliance is delivered by Van Excellence. p19

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Expert View: Professor Andy Neely, Cambridge Service Allliance

The productivity paradox: is there a measurement problem?

When it comes to assessing the link between productivity and technology should the figures governments are concerned about be re-evaluated asks Professor Andy Neely of the Cambridge Service Alliance...

T

here’s been much debate in recent months about the productivity paradox - put simply there’s a long standing concern that technology, particularly information technology, does not seem to deliver the productivity gains that might be expected.

This concern has resurfaced in the UK, with the Government raising questions about why the UK’s productivity has not grown as much as other countries.

In fact George Osborne recently called the UK’s low productivity growth “the challenge of our time”.

This same topic came up in a recent email discussion with colleagues from ISSIP - the International Society for Service Innovation Professionals.

This time prompted by an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Silicon Valley Doesn’t Believe US Productivity is Down”. In essence the Wall Street Journal argument was that developments in technology are not captured in the Government’s productivity figures - apps that help people find restaurants more quickly or hail cabs from their phones clearly improve the efficiency with which we can do things.

Doing more with less is a classic definition of productivity - so these apps must be improving productivity argues the Wall Street Journal (and those it quotes - including Hal Varian, Google’s Chief Economist).

While I accept the argument that apps and associated technologies allow us to do more with less, I think there’s a need to unpack the relationship between these developments and measures of productivity more carefully.

Traditionally governments have measured labour productivity - in terms of GDP per hour worked.

As technology replaces labour, GDP stays the same or increases, while labour hours go down - hence productivity increases.

However, there’s an interesting new phenomenon which complicates the picture. Take, for example,

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Uber. I’m a fan of Uber - the app is great. Its convenient.

Other firms have similar business models - think Amazon or Airbnb.

I’ve never had a bad service from an Uber driver.

I love the fact that I can rate drivers and they can rate customers at the end of journeys.

Still others provide me a service for free - Google and TripAdvisor - don’t charge me for the information they provide, instead making their money through third parties.

“When talking about productivity - or the lack of productivity - we need to think about the economic impact of these cheaper and/or free services...”

I love the fact that the cost of the ride gets charged to my credit card and the receipt automatically emailed to me. But I also love Uber because it is cheaper - I pay less for a Uber car than I do for a black cab in London.

Better service, pleasant drivers, lower prices what’s not to like?

When talking about productivity - or the lack of productivity - we need to think about the economic impact of these cheaper and/or free services.

Lower prices to consumers must mean lower GDP. The efficiency gains are there, but they are not being captured in productivity gains because the benefits are being passed on to consumers in the form of lower prices, rather than captured in the official GDP statistics.

Maybe a more nuanced discussion about productivity is needed - where we look at both sides of the equation - increases in value and hence GDP - and increases in efficiency reflected in lower costs to consumers.

FIELD SERVICE

REMOTE WORKER

ASSISTED SCHEDULER

CRM

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Business as usual, only smarter.

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Industry Industry Leaders Leaders Interview: Interview: Marne Marne Martin, Martin, ServicePower ServicePower

Forward thinking Our series of interviews with key industry leaders continues as Kris Oldland speaks exclusively to ServicePower CEO Marne Martin about their latest FSM product Nexus, and where the future lies for the UK based company...

I

t’s been a busy time for the team at ServicePower, a company heavily focussed in the constant evolution of their own suite of products, with a clear strategy of exploring and harnessing the latest emerging technologies and implementing them within their own solutions aimed squarely at the field service management sector.

The recent release of NEXUS FSTM, an enterpriseclass, cloud-based field service management solution designed to be suitable for any sized service business is the latest addition to the ServicePower line which incorporates comprehensive mobile dispatch functionality, that sits well with the dynamic scheduling engine that ServicePower is perhaps best know for.

In Marne Martin ServicePower have a focussed and savvy CEO, with a strong background in highly senior roles, with both a passion for innovation and understanding of what it takes to drive business forward. And it is clear that Martin has a clear vision of the road map ServicePower need to be taking both in the short to medium term as well and way beyond.

“We’ve really taken what we have, a twenty year deep and rich experience in field service and have now accelerated into new product development, as well as innovation of our existing applications, to find new ways of approaching the pain points and needs of the field service industry” Martin begins as we discuss where exactly ServicePower are in their development right now. p22

“Especially the last twelve, to eighteen months we’ve really accelerated.” She continues “We acquired the source code for mobility in January 2013 and we’ve actually built out a leading mobility product, we’ve been able to leapfrog our competition in many regards.”

We’ve really taken what we have, a twenty year deep and rich experience in field service and have now accelerated into new product development, as well as innovation of our existing applications Our conversation is taking place just after the announcement of Nexus which has a definitively fresh and modern feel with clearly a lot of focus on the user experience. This is something that will sit across the suite of ServicePower products in the not too distant future and is clearly a

consideration for the development of their product line.

“With the existing applications we’re about half way through migrating the UIs to the really great new look and feel of Nexus, we’re using angular JS and Bootstrap but we’re looking at new technologies all the time and it’s a really beautiful UI” Martin comments “Even when you think about what Salesforce and some of the really big players are doing, I feel we are really at the cutting edge now with our development work.”

UI has become an integral element of what makes a successful business application in today’s modern environment and this is something Martin is acutely aware of.

“You can’t underestimate how radically Apple has changed everything. With what they put out with the iPhone and how it looks and feels. You certainly have leaders in software that really care about user experience and UI like Salesforce, but I think Apple with the penetration they had, really took it to the next level” So how does this Martin filter this approach into her own organisation?

“The key is taking what we’ve done with some of the new technology, and then making sure we have integrated a great user experience throughout the other applications, modernising the UI, but not losing all the functionality that we

“The key is taking what we’ve done with some of the new technology, and then making sure we have integrated a great user experience ” - Marne Martin, CEO, ServicePower

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The UI is nice but in the end what they (enterprise level field service organisations) care about is things like our ability to do real-time optimisation, heavy duty management of third party contractors, the warranty claims, analytics all these things... have built over the last twenty years. It’s a really exciting time” “I think ten years ago there were certainly some competitors that were more proactive in terms of UI than ServicePower were but we’ve actually worked to leapfrog them and even go beyond where Salesforce is at the moment using them and Apple as a benchmark” “Even if you look back at TOA at the time, they had a great UI for the time and ClickSoftware were doing some UI development already maybe ten years ago but I think we’ve actually moved beyond with NEXUS FSTM” “At this point we are benchmarking off ourselves in a way, we have a great team led by Steve Higgins who joined with us in late January, and then he has integrated with all the various product teams with the existing applications.”

“The product guys were just at Dreamforce the other week and they walked away saying ‘wow we are actually ahead in certain areas now.’ I’m really proud of that.”

However, Martin is also keenly aware that mission critical software, especially at enterprise level cannot be all style and no substance.

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“When we look at SMB solutions on the internet you know they want to see a UI like that but ultimately when it comes to the enterprise deals, when you get to a certain scale and size, it is still all about the functionality” she explains.

ServiceMax competes, where Service Bench competes that gives us a lot of business to go after and that is why sales execution is going to be very interesting as we go after that business.”

Explains Martin.

“The UI is nice but in the end what they (enterprise level field service organisations) care about is things like our ability to do real-time optimisation, heavy duty management of third party contractors, the warranty claims analytics all these things”

It’s a bold strategy, that will see the UK based company, whose US offices are in Virginia taking on all comers, even ServiceMax who they also work with as a partner on occasion and whilst Martin clearly has respect for her Californian based rivals, she also believes ServicePower are well placed to compete with them for business.

“A great UI is necessary now, but its is not enough, you’ve got to have depth of functionality because that’s what gives a barrier to entry.”

Martin states before adding “With a hundred grand I might be able to spin up a little UI and an app, but I’m never going to be able to get a robust solution that will satisfy the leading enterprises as well as having the depth of functionality.”

“I think ServiceMax validated that in the field service sector you really can go after the SMBs and the enterprise” she comments before adding “but the issue a little bit with ServiceMax of course is the cost, as a SaaS only solution it is quite an expensive solution and does has both the pros and the cons of being built right on the Salesforce ecosystem.”

And with a product development road map starting to come to fruition, the next stage for ServicePower is an aggressive growth period as they seek to capitalise on the attention a raft of awards and recognition their technology has gathered as they’ve continually sought to improve their own suite of solutions.

Martin admits the next phase of their strategy is to really focus on sales execution now.

“I think we have a very good position now in terms of growing our brand awareness, and the recognition of the technology in the product suite, so that now we can really start scaling on sales execution and that’ll be the big push the year forward.”

So what sector are they looking to conquer? Well one of the advantages Martin sees ServicePower having over their competitors is that they are ideally placed to work across a broad spectrum of field service organisations.

“If you think of where we are now I like to describe us as in the middle of the triangle.”

Martin begins.

“So you have ClickSoftware at the top and then ServiceMax and Service Bench in the two bottom corners. We sit in the inside of the triangle competing in all those areas. Each corner has slightly different focus but we are able to start looking at the markets and verticals of all three of those.”

“It gives us a very broad spectrum if we can compete directly where Click compete, where

“So we worked with NEXUS FSTM to have a technology that is actually very scalable at a lower cost point. That will enable us to go in at a good and attractive price point and demonstrate real ROI to a lot of the SMB segment as well be able to scale that with functionality to the enterprise market as it’s very versatile and modular.”

However, as mentioned above, whilst the ServicePower team are gearing up for an eventful few years in the short term, Martin has an eye on the long term as well.

ServicePower now have a number of patents currently being filed having worked with KPP and Manchester University in the UK – an area Martin believes is a hotbed for emerging technology focussed talent.

“I’m a little bit of a technology nerd in the sense that I have always been involved with companies that have a lot of technology patents and interest in patents” confesses Martin “I firmly believe there is a ton of excellent technology developed there (in the UK) because there are still a lot of people studying maths and sciences in the UK and the quality of the technology is great there.”

And the area of this investment in technology is all focussed on developing the next-generation of algorithms to drive field service management scheduling forwards.

As Martin explained “Our simulated annealing algorithms is excellent, its very versatile and

Industry Leaders Interview: Marne Martin, ServicePower

One of the things that I have always cared about is not thinking business is an environment where I win by someone else losing. Instead we have to find ways with our partners and with our customers where we all win. it works across a broad variety of verticals. But when you think about the future you want to get algorithms that use less meta-data and work faster and more efficiently.”

“You need to start thinking about not just optimising the work-flow and technicians but how do we start bringing in predictive analytics, more integration touch points and all these Big Data elements. To do that you really need to go to the next level.” She adds.

“That’s where we started doing the investment with some people in Manchester University looking at Quantum Annealing.”

“What’s interesting with the ServiceScheduling product, and this is one of the reasons it has always performed so well, is it never allows a bad schedule. When it optimises in the process it runs through various optimisation scenarios and then only writes that change if it is definitely better. “ “What quantum will do is do this in a more efficient way and faster. If simulated annealing takes an one-minute of optimisation to get to a result, we want something that will take 15 seconds to get to a result.”

“It also will enable us to migrate the product into the next generation.” Martin comments before explaining further “Rather than a boring discussion on how do you keep re-writing the existing product, when we

look forward five years we want to have a new back-end engine based on quantum annealing, so ideally we would have that in two to three years and that will fit in with a lot of the predictive capabilities that are in demand especially by the larger enterprises to day.”

“I am very much a partner person and one of the things that I have always cared about is not thinking business is an environment where I win by someone else losing. Instead we have to find ways with our partners and with our customers where we all win.” She states

Such vision and desire to innovate whilst also building the business in the current is impressive, however for Martin it really is a simple case of wanting to build a product that will become a significant player within the field service industries for many years to come.

“I think there is enough opportunities that even through a partner ecosystem, both should be generating profit whilst still delivering ROI to our customers.”

It is also the biggest differentiator she can build between her companies and her competitors who she feels are not pushing the boundaries as much as they perhaps should be.

“Even if you look at SAP and Oracle and other big players, there really is very limited true technology innovation.” Martin states.

“ServiceMax doesn’t use any algorithms, the TOA algorithm is older, ClickSoftware uses so many algorithms that it makes its very complicated when training, or at least it makes it very labour intensive.”

“We want to keep driving superior results for the field service organisations but do it with technology that makes their life easy not complicated.”

Indeed whilst Martin is eloquent and laid back during our interview, she also clearly has plenty of belief in her product line which shines through our conversation.

“I’m very passionate about our product suite; I’ll put our products up against everybody, especially as we continue finishing off the road map of where we are going.” She states boldly.

“It’s coming together slowly but surely and steadily and us being able to do this across the next 12, 24, 36 months it’s going to be phenomenal.”

“We want to make sure that we are setting up a company that can continue growing in the immediate future but we also want to set up one that can keep growing for twenty years as an exciting field service player.”

Although they may not be ploughing that path alone, as Martin alluded to a soon to be announced partnership with Thingworx to add to their IoT partners, with the potential for other partnerships along the way.

And this is at the core of Martin’s thinking when it comes to partnerships, delivering customer ROI must remain at the very hear of any conversation.

“My approach is I will partner with whomever is going to be a good partner as long as we can deliver real return on investment for our customers.” Adds Martin.

“Those partnerships that are all about window dressing and marketing, that the customers don’t get value from, well they may be nice but in the end its all about customer value.”

With a steady growth trajectory, a desire to innovate continuously and a firm grasp of the most important factor of all - delivering customer value, ServicePower under Martin’s guidance are certainly on the right track.

With an active sales approach being the adopted in 2016 there is a fair chance you’ll be speaking to someone in the ServicePower sales team at some point next year. Given the vision and direction of ServicePower , I’d say that when the call does come, you may well want to listen.

Quantum will do this in a more efficient way and faster. If simulated annealing takes oneminute of optimisation to get to a result, we want something that will take 15 seconds to get to a result.

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Expert View: Bill Pollock, Strategies for Growth

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The differences between a customer problem and a problem customer We all know the old adage ‘the customer is always right’ and in all honesty we’ve all questioned the truth in that statement at least once in our lives, but how do we ensure that we stay in control when that customer problem becomes a problem customer?

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ot all customers are “problems”, but as long as their equipment is down, they are experiencing a “problem”. In fact, most customers realize that their equipment will go down from time to time, and most interpret this as nothing more than an inconvenient “fact of life”.

However, particularly when the customer feels they have not received good customer service and support in the past, or if the machine has undergone a succession of similar types of failures one after the other, there is an increasing chance that even a “good customer” can turn into a “problem customer”.

Sometimes it’s your fault, sometimes it’s someone else’s fault within the organisation, and sometimes it’s the customer’s fault – however, when all is said and done, it will be the field technician who is the one who will have to deal with it.

Typically, the best way to distinguish between a “customer problem” and a “problem customer” is to observe the way in which the customer is handling the situation.

For example, if the customer remains cool, calm, and collected throughout all of its discussions with you regarding a specific service event – regardless of how many discussions you are forced to have – then, you may consider the problem to be more equipment-focused then customer-focused.

However, if you and your company are doing everything possible to get the equipment up and running, get the replacement parts to the customer site as soon as possible, or get a quick “fix” to a software glitch, and the customer is becoming increasingly less cool, calm, and collected, then you may soon be dealing more with a “problem customer” than with a “customer problem”.

We’ve all heard the expression, “The customer is always right”. Well, that is not always true.

The general rule of thumb is, “The more ‘right’ the customer is, the more likely you are to be dealing

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with a ‘customer problem’; however, the less ‘right’ the customer is, the more likely you are to be dealing with a ‘problem customer’”.

In most cases, the former types of situations are largely out of our control; however in virtually every case, the latter are entirely preventable.

In some situations, it may not be entirely clear which is the case. The one thing that is clear, however, is that in either case you will still need to treat the customer in exactly the same way – that is, assuming they are “right”, and treating them accordingly.

Of course, the best way to avoid having to deal with an irate customer is to do everything in our power to accommodate them – within reason!

“When the customer feels

But, that does not always work and, accordingly, there will generally be times when we will need to do some immediate – and intense – “damage control”.

they have not received good

The main focus of any damage control on the part of the field technician would be primarily to:

customer service and support

•

in the past, or if the machine has undergone a succession of similar types of failures one after the other, there is an increasing chance that even a ‘good customer’ can turn into a ‘problem customer’.”

However, dealing with an irate customer takes the situation to an entirely new level! We’ve all had them – irate customers!

And, the bad news is, we will continue to have them for the duration!

However, there are two ways in which to experience irate customers; either directly as result of a specific event or situation (i.e., a failure in the middle of a key production run, a repeat failure, a self-inflicted failure, or any other number of product- and/or time-related reasons), or because we have made them irate (i.e., treated them poorly, didn’t respond quickly enough, looked like we weren’t paying attention to them, etc).

• • •

•

Address the situation directly, and attempt to resolve it quickly, completely and satisfactorily; Explain the reality of the situation objectively and calmly to the customer; Provide any relevant data or documentation that proves your case, if requested; Be prepared to correct any misinformation or misperceptions on the customer’s part to avoid any further miscommunication; and Explain concisely and accurately why a specific situation may have occurred, what positive actions you will be taking to correct it, and when they could reasonably expect the problem to be resolved to their satisfaction.

In the services profession, you will probably always be running into some customers who, for one reason or another, simply like to be “irate”. This is a fact of business life, and you should be prepared to deal with it as best you can.

However, by continually embracing and utilising a “Listen, Observe, Think, Speak” (i.e., LOTS) approach in all of your customer interactions, you can successfully reduce these types of instances in most cases.

3RD AND 4TH NOVEMBER I N T E R C O N T I N E N TA L PA R I S L E G R A N D H O T E L

ELEVATE FIELD SERVICE AT M A X L I V E E U R O P E F E AT U R I N G :

John Cooper, Head of Service P R O FE SSIO NAL SE RVICE S E URO P E

Learn more today, visit maxlive.servicemax.com/europe or call +44 (0) 20 300 48 920

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Expert View: Sumair Dutta, The Service Council

IoT: Extending Enterprise Value with Service Data Sumair Dutta of The Service Council explores the findings of their latest IoT research...

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f the near 70% of organisations in The Service Council’s (TSC) community with connected service (or M2M or IoT) projects in place in a 2015 research survey, 53% indicated that they have had remote access to machine data for over 5 years. In return, they have built improved responsive and predictive service delivery processes.

As organisations get more mature around the use of IoT-enabled data in service, they are beginning to identify the opportunity present in leveraging data across other areas of the organisation. This sharing strategy follows a maturity path, wherein engineering and product design are the initial beneficiaries before sales, marketing and other groups can access this data for revenue programs.

Inside the Enterprise Organisations continue to be extremely silo’d and the use of IoT-generated data is no exception.

Largely, service data is typically used by service and operations in an organised manner. Use outside of service tends to be mostly sporadic or ad-hoc with a few exceptions. This will change, and the bullets below highlight areas of opportunity currently untapped by most service organisations.

Engineering • Improve quality of products tied to failure and performance information (currently done by 68% of respondents) • Work with service teams to improve serviceability of products (currently done by 58% of respondents) Product Design and Systems Support • Track software versions and make necessary updates (currently done by 40% of respondents) • Add/remove product features tied to usage (currently done by 19% of respondents) Operations and Business Planning • Predict future business trends and plan resource needs (currently done by 36% respondents) • Work with service teams to manage performance-based contracts (currently done by 40% of respondents) • Manage and administer pay-per-use business models (currently done by 17% of respondents) p28

HR and Training • Improve and modify training based on service event occurrence (currently done by 36% of respondents) • Deliver real-time training during a service event (currently done by 23% of respondents) Sales and Marketing • Improve account management with better access into customer usage of product and features (currently done minimally) • Personalise messaging and content tied to customer preferences (done minimally) • Recognize need for and build new services (currently done by 28% of respondents) Supply Chain • Manage inventory replenishment levels (currently done minimally) • Evaluate partner performance and isolate quality issues to supply chain link (currently done minimally) Other teams such as compliance and finance can also tap into these data streams for better results, but as with most maturity models, this takes time.

Progress requires interest on behalf of non-service groups to tap into this data; the ability to easily acquire and analyse data; and a set of processes to use this data to enact business change. These changes aren’t usually part of the short-term goals provided to these teams. However, as organisations begin to take an integrated look at customer journeys and customer success, there will be better alignment of functional activities with broader organisation and customer objectives.

Outside the Enterprise In increasing the reach of IoT investments, organisations still run into a large group of customers who are unwilling to connect. Security and regulatory concerns lend to this lack of commitment from customers but it also comes down to a fear of connectivity and the lack of understanding in the true value.

Most of the financial value discussed with remote monitoring accrues to the servicing organisation.

While there are uptime and efficiency benefits for the end customer, these customers either have to pay more for it, or are unaware of the benefit

provided. In some instances, customers believe they are receiving less value, as the service teams are less visible. Therefore, delivering value is extremely important, but so is selling the sizzle.

To this end, it is important to consistently provide customers with visibility into; • IoT infrastructure investments made to support their businesses • Reporting tied to issue, failure and cost avoidance • Data on asset usage and performance •

Strategies to maximize customer outcomes

More than 60% of those in TSC’s research with IoT deployments in place already provide operating and performance information to customers.

Traditionally this data has been in the form of emailed reports featuring historical performance.

Now, there is a greater emphasis on providing diagnostic information and transaction logs in a more real-time manner. In addition, organisations are also providing their customers with access to benchmarking data tied to the performance of other like assets or other like customers.

With the aid of this information, customers see additional value in connecting via IoT, on top of the improved service delivered by their servicing partner. It also opens up the door for co-innovation opportunities where the customer and the servicing organisation can create new relationship and value opportunities that benefit both. It is also worth noting that these data reports generate additional revenue. Fifty-five percent (55%) of TSC’s community with IoT deployments in place indicate that their customers currently pay for reporting and additional data that is provided by the servicing organisation.

As service organisations look to transition to become solution partners, they can greatly improve their positioning with customers with the aid of IoT-enabled performance data.

However, there has to be a greater emphasis on collaboration and innovation around the use of IoT data to truly drive sustained enterprise and customer value.

Research Report: Is it time for IoT to become part of the field service landscape?

research sponsored by:

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The Internet of Things and field service: headline findings

44%

of companies operate a proactive strategy where possible but are still mostly reactive.

37% 42%

of compnies have products suitable for sensor based monitoring

The biggest perceived barrier to adopting IoT identified by 56% of field service professionals is

research sponsored by:

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55%

36%

of field service professionals state that IoT will become a fundamental part of field service operations in the future.

3% 31%

of companies invest in new technology initiatives to improve your field service operations and performance every year

of field service companies are still using paper based systems

of field service professionals believe that IoT will not play a role in the future of field service operations

74% of field service professionals don’t think size of company matters when implementing IoT

82%

think early adopters of IoT will gain a competitive advantage

45%

connectivity

15% of field service companies already have IoT based systems in place

of field service profesionals believe the IoT will have a greater impact than any other tech in the next five years

of field service professionals think IoT is already becoming common place in field service

52% of field service companies are either implementing or planning an IoT based strategy

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IoT: is it really going to change everything & are we ready for it?

The Internet of Things has been widely touted as being the ultimate game changer for field service companies but are we ready for it?

Field Service News joined up with ServiceMax and PTC on a research project looking at the appetite for IoT in field service today...

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e are seemingly blessed to be living in a time of such incredible advancement.

Technological trends such as Big Data, Enterprise Mobility and Cloud Computing have all pushed businesses forward and often we see these three coming together in the latest field service management systems, where data is easily collected, interpreted and distributed across a business eco-system.

Such systems give engineers instant access to knowledge bases, managers continuous overviews of the performance of their teams and most importantly of all, customers an ever improving customer experience.

However whilst the opportunity for improving business processes these technologies present is clear, when it comes to potential for real, genuine industrial revolution, there is another emergent technology that promises to be king and that is the Internet of Things.

Whilst the massive hype that surrounded Big Data meant that the early projects we are seeing today are perhaps a slight anti-climax, (BI on steroids which is undeniably useful in business but just not quite the life changing scenarios that were being bandied about back in 2013) with IoT almost the opposite is true.

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There seems to be less confusion around IoT, which given it’s much more tangible nature makes sense, but have we grasped the magnitude of how big an impact it could truly have on field service industries?

There seems to be less confusion around IoT, which given it’s much more tangible nature makes sense, but have we grasped the magnitude of how big an impact it could truly have on field service industries?

To try and understand a little more about the general attitude to and application of IoT amongst field service companies, Field Service News has partnered with ServiceMax and PTC on this research project looking to ascertain just how ready we are in field service for IoT.

About the research The research was conducted across a period of 6 weeks during August and September this year.

Over 100 field service professionals contributed to the research with respondents from both the operational side of business (field service directors/managers etc) as well as senior IT representatives (CIO/CTO etc.) particpating alongside business leaders (MD,CEO etc.)

We had a variety of company sizes ranging from those with less than 10 field workers through to those with over 800 field workers, with a fairly even split across these groups so there was fair representation of opinions from companies of differing sizes.

Also whilst there was a slight UK bias in respondents, there were also respondents from India, Ireland, The Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Germany and the USA so there was a mix of nationalities amongst the respondents as well.

Before we began looking at the appetite for IoT amongst our respondents we first wanted to see if companies were actually well placed to benefit from adopting an IoT strategy.

To do this we needed to assess where the companies in our group were in terms of their approach to technology in general as well as how they approached their own service delivery

Research Report: Are we ready for IoT Of course with the introduction of any new technology there will always be laggards and there will always be bleeding edge adopters and if there was a bias amongst our respondent group either way this should be taken into account when exploring other responses and trends identified within the research.

Therefore the first question we asked our respondents was “How regularly does your company invest in new technology initiatives to improve field service operations and performance” and we gave our respondents the choices of every year, every two years, every three years, every five years or other.

It would seem our group was on average representing a slightly forward looking set of companies with 35% stating they would invest in new technology an annual basis. Meanwhile 13% stated they did so every two years, 17% every three years and 16% five years.

A number of respondents also commented that their company’s investment in technology was slightly less strategic and on more of an ad-hoc basis although members of this group also stated ‘recently the investment in new technology is being increased’

Predictive or reactive?

The next question we asked in this initial section was whether our respondents were working for a company that is either adopting a pro-active or reactive model in terms of their field service planning.

Again this will be a good indicator of how ready field service companies are to adopt IoT as one of the significant factors in why IoT is predicted to be such have such a major impact, particularly in field service, is that it can be the key for companies moving away from the traditional break-fix delivery of service to a more efficient preventative maintenance approach to delivering field service.

Indeed it seems that the majority of field service companies do see the benefits of moving towards delivering service in a proactive rather than reactive manner, in theory at least.

Whilst the same amount of companies (6%) stated they were either “Fully pro-active with a mix of predictive and preventive maintenance, enabled by remote monitoring and M2M diagnostics” or “We are mostly pro-active using both predictive and preventive maintenance strategies but still have a small percentage of reactive calls.” The largest group of respondents by a long way (44%) stated they “operate a proactive strategy where possible but are still mostly reactive.”

Meanwhile almost a third of companies (31%) state that their “service is half proactive and half reactive” whilst only a small fraction of companies (4%) were operating on a wholly reactive strategy.

This would suggest that the perceived wisdom that field service companies should be moving away from the traditional break-fix reactive approach to a more proactive approach, which is better for service providers and their customers alike, is being adopted by the industry at large.

“The largest group of respondents by a along way (44%) stated they “operate a proactive strategy where possible but are still mostly reactive.”

It also indicates that whilst this attitude is widespread, achieving a move away from breakfix models is harder to achieve than simply updating policies.

In fact responses to this question would certainly strengthen the case for Internet of Things being rapidly accepted and adopted amongst field service companies who can see the benefits of proactive maintenance but are unable to deliver it.

The tech being used today So as we begin to form a picture of our respondent companies we can see that on the main they have moved towards a proactive approach that IoT could quite certainly improve and on the whole they are either regularly investing in technology to improve their field service operations or are open to doing so.

I mentioned in the beginning of this report that technologies such as Big Data, Enterprise Mobility and Cloud Computing have evolved together at a similar time to become highly complimentary and the core of what many modern field service management solutions are today.

Our next question was included to see what types of technology our industry has already adopted and once again, as has been seen in previous Field Service News research projects there seems to be two clear and distinct groups within field service -

the Haves and Have-Nots.

For while over half of all companies (51%) are now utilising Field Service Management Software, with nearly a third (31%) utilising Dynamic Scheduling tools, and just over a fifth (21%) using telematics to manage their field engineers, still almost two fifths (37%) are using paper based systems.

However, the one clear area where companies have made investments in is within mobile computing devices with over two thirds (67%) of companies already utilising some form of mobile computing device for their engineers whether it is a PDA, Smart Phone, Tablet or Laptop.

So returning to a perspective of whether as a whole field service companies are ready to turn to a new technology such as the Internet of Things, then it would seem that for many the bedrock of technology required to allow them to truly capitalise on such an implementation is in place.

However there is still a large section of the industry that could be viewed as technologically immature, so whilst the implementation of IoT isn’t necessarily dependant on other technologies, one would imagine that the likelihood of a company investing in an IoT strategy without having already implemented a field service management solution is probably relatively slim.

Yet as the technology continues to evolve, as partnerships such as that of ServiceMax and PTC working together continue to evolve and as disparate platforms become ever more integrated then we will certainly start to see field service management platforms that are built to incorporate IoT become more prevalent, which may give those companies that are currently viewed as laggards a potential quantum leap forward in the way they are utilising technology to deliver service.

Sensor based monitoring Of course perhaps the most important question when assessing whether field service companies are ready for undertaking an IoT strategy is whether or not they believe they have a product line and install base that opens themselves to sensor based monitoring.

The majority of respondents which was just

research sponsored by:

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over two fifths (42%) believe that they do have a product line which would be suitable for sensor based monitoring. This would suggest that there is indeed already a large potential market for IoT amongst field service companies.

However it is also interesting to note that of those companies that didn’t feel they had products that opened themselves up to sensor based monitoring, there were more companies who were not sure if their install base was suitable (26%) as opposed to those who simply stated their product line didn’t open itself up to sensor based monitoring (23%).

This opens up an interesting question as to whether there is still a requirement for further education of what is required for Internet of Things to be successfully implemented. How much is possible via retrofitting for example or is IoT wholly reliant on new product development?

Such questions certainly provide opportunities for vendors and consultants to help educate those companies who are uncertain about whether the Internet of Things could be of value to them. However, if we bring together the results of the above questions, the opportunity for IoT to become an integral part in the way many field service companies operate is certainly apparent.

So having established that there are a sizeable number of field service companies that could potentially be suited to implementing an IoT strategy, the next big question is of course what is the general perception of IoT amongst these companies – do they see the potential match themselves or will IoT fail to live up to the significant hype surrounding it today?

To help us understand how big the appetite for IoT was amongst field service companies we asked our respondents “which of the following technologies do you think will have the biggest impact on field service operations within the next five years?”

Giving them the options of ‘IoT’, ‘Big Data’, ‘Smart Glasses’, ‘Augmented Reality’, ‘Connected Vehicles’ or ‘Other’.

Here there was a clear winner and it was indeed IoT which 45% of our respondents stated would have the biggest impact. In fact this was more than double the second most popular option which was Big Data (19%) closely followed by Connected Vehicles (cited by 15%). Interestingly Augmented Reality, which like IoT could also have a significant impact on field service beyond simply improving efficiencies was only cited by 10% of our respondents as being the technology most likely to have the largest impact on field service, perhaps due to the relative immaturity of the technology on display to date. p34

It was also interesting to see that despite some very interesting potential applications being produced that again could lead to huge potential savings for field service companies, that smart glasses registered with only 3% of our respondents. A large factor here being the perceived failure of Google Glass perhaps?

Interestingly of those respondents that added additional comments within the ‘other’ section there were a number of respondents who admitted that they remain unsure as to what technology will have the most impact with one respondent commenting “I’m not convinced that the industry yet knows what the next big thing will be. Our industry is still coming to terms with the improvements in smart phones and understanding the tangible benefits that can be gleaned from modern apps and lowering data costs.”

This opens up an interesting question as to whether there is still a requirement for further education of what is required for Internet of Things to be successfully implemented.

This adds some interesting further insight into the fact that whilst for some field service and technology are becoming increasingly entwined, for many companies in the market there is still a cautious approach to allowing technology to redefine the way we do business.

Belief in the power of IoT Given then the fact that the majority of our respondents believe that IoT will be the most important technology to impact the way field service companies operate within the next five years, just how critical do companies feel that IoT will be?

Again our respondents showed a significantly positive approach to the importance of IoT when we asked them “What are your thoughts of the Internet of Things and how it can be implemented in Field Service?”

Over half (55%) of our respondents stated they thought “IoT will become a fundamental part

of field service operations in the future” whilst a further 21% went further stating that “IoT is critical to any field service organisation’s strategy”.

The same amount of respondents (21%) stated that they felt that whilst ‘IoT is an interesting technology and I can see potential applications for it I don’t think it is ready yet.”

This means that 97% of respondents felt that they could at the very least see the potential of the Internet of Things in a field service environment compared to just 3% who stated ‘I don’t see it playing a part in our field service operations’.

Such figures indicate a truly overwhelming belief that IoT is indeed set to lie at the heart of field service as our industry continues to evolve.

Does size matter?

Of course one of the biggest challenges any emerging technology faces in terms of gaining traction and widespread adoption is whether it is accessible for companies of all sizes.

Often it is the case that when a significant new technology arrives it is cost prohibitive for those smaller companies (and often even mid-sized companies as well) to adopt. In field service this has often been negated by the fact that as well as delivering the opportunity to deliver better service for customers, very often technology in field service management can yield significant cost savings as well.

It has long been a key argument for the implementation of dynamic scheduling, tablets and smart phones and telematics for example that x implementation will have paid for itself within y months.

Of course similar arguments can be put forward for the introduction of IoT but for companies that would be looking to retrofit their assets in the field, such an implementation could have a potentially large initial outlay. So has this impacted on whether field service companies believe that IoT is a technology that could work for companies of all sizes?

We asked our respondents “do you think that IoT is more suited to larger companies or accessible to companies of all sizes?” And it seems that on the whole such challenges are not considered sizeable enough to be prohibitive for smaller companies with almost three quarters of respondents stating they ‘don’t think size matters when implementing IoT’.

What is particularly interesting is that when we drill down further into the data to look at responses from those representing companies

Research Report: Are we ready for IoT

with 50 engineers or less, this figure remains high at almost two thirds (65%) and in fact the number of respondents from this group who state IoT is ‘more suited to larger companies’ remains almost the same as the group as a whole (15% of respondents when looking just at smaller companies vs. 16% of the group as a whole) with a larger percentage of respondents stating they ‘don’t know’.

So it would appear that even amongst those companies with smaller field service teams, the majority believe that IoT could be suited to their business, again further reinforcing the belief that IoT will be part of the field service landscape across companies of all sizes.

When will IoT be common place?

So it seems that there is a general agreement amongst field service companies that the Internet of Things will become a staple part of field service operations. However, where opinions remain somewhat divided is when we will start to see this happen on a pervasive scale.

We asked our respondents “when do you think IoT will become common place within field service operations?” And the results were both varied and relatively evenly spread.

The most popular response was that in fact ‘it is already beginning to happen’ which just under a third (30%) of respondents stated. However, the second most common answer was within the next five years which just under a quarter of respondents (24%) stated. “Within the next three years” and “within the next two years” were the next highest answers with 19% and 18% opting for these responses respectively, whilst 5% felt it would happen within the next twelve months.

Of course varying factors such as industry verticals, company sizes and more will impact when we actually see a widespread adoption of IoT so perhaps such differing opinions may be expected here but what is clear is that again the majority do expect to see IoT become common place in field service. In fact just 3% of our respondents stated they ‘don’t think it will happen at all’.

with 15% of companies actually ‘having an IoT based system in place’ and 14% currently in ‘the process of implementing an IoT strategy or solution.’

This would indicate that whilst those who stated that they felt IoT was already becoming widespread may be slightly optimistic, in reality we are perhaps three to five years away from IoT becoming a truly common place tool within field service management with only just under a third of companies (32%) not currently planning to use an IoT strategy or solution as part of their field service operations.

Main reasons for adopting IoT So what are the key drivers for what is seemingly a large appetite amongst field service companies to adopt and develop their own IoT strategies?

In fact there were three key reasons that were cited by our respondents that stood out in our findings. The largest of these was to ‘Improve customer loyalty by improving the service levels we deliver to our customers’ which 68% of our respondents identified as being a major reason for adopting an IoT strategy.

Over two thirds (67%) of companies are at the least currently actively planning an IoT strategy...

This was closely followed by ‘increasing the efficiency of a field service division’ and ‘reducing costs by moving to a more preventative service model’ which were cited by 62% and 59% respectively. Indeed these three options could be identified as the holy trinity of drivers for investment in field service technology and are quite rightly identified as key drivers regardless of the technology.

In fact we can look further within our data to help us better identify when we will see field service companies embracing IoT on a widespread level by looking at how many companies have indeed already implemented an IoT strategy and how many are currently planning to do so.

However, the next group of responses which again were all identified by similar amounts of respondents are perhaps much more specific to IoT. These were ‘increasing market share by delivering proactive service before the competition’ (43%),’IoT enabling companies to change our business strategy to a servitized, outcome based solutions model’ (42%) and ‘Increasing profits by moving to a more service oriented business model.’

Indeed over two thirds (67%) of companies are at the very least ‘actively planning an IoT strategy’,

With a high proportion of our respondents backing each of these statements we are also

Actual implementations

seeing perhaps further evidence of the growing movement towards servitization which is of course often heavily reliant on remote monitoring that comes via the Internet of Things.

Barriers to adoption Of course we must also explore the barriers to adopting IoT as well and here it seems clear that there are again three major concerns for field service companies looking to develop an IoT strategy.

The first is the perennial fear of twenty first century technology, security. Much like the Cloud there is a worry about being so heavily reliant on the internet especially as it becomes fully ingrained within business critical tools and 46% of respondents stated this was a major barrier to implementing an IoT strategy.

Tied heavily to this of course is connectivity.

Whilst for some companies fears around the security of connected devices is a worry, for many others, especially those operating in rural areas actually connecting devices to the Internet in the first place is also a significant challenge and this was flagged up by 56% of respondents.

Finally there is of course the question of the customer. Again security worries remain and 55% of companies believe that their ‘customers would be reluctant to have their devices connected sharing data.’

Conclusion However, as mobile broadband continues to improve at a rapid pace, connectivity issues will surely subside and whilst the perception of the IoT being a security threat remains, online security is also continuously improving with the likes of Amazon Web Services and recent PTC acquisition Axeda continuing to reinforce online security.

So given that these major fears are likely to fade with time and that there is already a significant groundswell of approval for the use of IoT in field service it seems that it is now perhaps a matter of time before we stop talking about IoT as the future of field service and start seeing it as an integral element within field service operations.

Indeed, the big question for most field service companies is no longer if you will move to IoT but when and what will happen to those who get left behind? research sponsored by:

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Hands On: Xplore Technologies BoBCAT RUGGED TABLET As we continue our series looking at some of the key rugged devices available in the market today we turn our attention to Xplore’s Bobcat rugged tablet...

What the manufacturers say...

The Bobcat tablet is one of the latest in Xplore’s family of fully-rugged tablets. Featuring an array of integrated options, and a sleek, sophisticated design, the Bobcat will change the way you look at tablets. With a MIL-STD-810G rating and Windows® 8.1 Pro, the Bobcat can go from the boardroom to the work site without missing a beat.

First impressions...

With the recent acquisition of Motion Computing

by Xplore Technologies the obvious initial comparison to make for the Bobcat is with it’s new sibling range and when compared to the Motion F5M the Bobcat certainly has a much more aesthetically pleasing style.

Whilst the F5M with it’s integrated handle looks like a product that was only ever designed with industry in mind, the Bobcat whilst still having a clear ruggedity about, it could pass far more p36

easily for a consumer device.

Of course one could ask why does this matter?

And when we talk about pure functionality, and viewing tablets simply as a tool for doing the job, the answer is of course it doesn’t.

When it comes to buttons and peripherals the Bobcat’s layout makes sense and was easily navigated with placing being intuitive However, when we spend just a moment to consider the human, emotional side of getting our engineers buy in, the fact remains that a ‘sexier’

more consumer-looking device is more likely to get the approval of a field engineer, which of course could lead to swifter adoption times.

And whilst the Bobcat isn’t perhaps as sleek as the Getac T800 or Panaosonic’s Toughpad 4K it is certainly not the ugliest tablet in the Rugged World.

In the hand, it feels sturdy enough without ever feeling cumbersome. In fact weighing in at just over 1 kilogram the Bobcat is a similar weight to the Panasonic FZ-G1 and weighs in a lot lighter than Getac’s F110 model.

When it comes to buttons and peripherals the Bobcat’s layout makes sense and was easily navigated with placing being intuitive.

Also the optional handle that can be attached whilst not offering the solidity of the integrated handle of the F5M does offer the option of easily carrying the device around in such a manner

although personally I found the handle slightly uncomfortable when carrying and bit awkward and in the way when using the device.

It is however a detachable accessory so this isn’t a significant problem.

Processing power

As for the graphics card, the Bobcat’s Intel Integrated Mobile Gen7 Graphics card is also a little lacking compared to some of it’s competitors but again it should still be sufficient enough for common usage that we would see in field service.

Operating system

When it comes to what’s underneath the hood, the Bobcat falls a bit short of many of it’s peers.

As with most tablets in this space The Bobcat is a windows based tablet coming currently in the two flavours of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 (with upgrade options to Windows 10).

Panasonic’s FZ-G1, Getac’s T800 and F110 models the Motion F5m all boasting faster processing power than the Bobcat’s relatively modest 1.91Ghz processer as standard with most competitors offering the option of even better processing speeds if required.

This is of course great for the majority of companies that are using Windows for their office based systems as well as it helps for easier transfer of data from field to office and back.

That said the Bobcat should be able a large majority of tasks that it would be expected to deal with in the field however, it perhaps isn’t the choice for mobile workers who will be using a lot of CPU hungry applications.

Perhaps an option for an Android OS may appeal to some and would be a welcome inclusion however as mentioned most tablets within this class are Windows based so it would be unfair to single out Xplore for criticism here.

The Ins & Outs Where the Bobcat does impress is in the number of included ports – something that is often a challenge for rugged tablets.

The Bobcat comes with 2 separate USB3.0 ports a feat unmatched by all of the above mentioned competitor devices except for an optional upgraded configuration of the Panasonic FZ-G1.

The Bobcat also has a MicroSD slot which not only gives the option of expanding the 128GB internal memory (upgradable to 256GB) but is also a potentially useful means of transferring files from developed in the field onto a desktop at any point.

Should your engineers need to give presentations of the work being undertaken at any point then the micro HDMI out will allow them to easily share directly from the Bobcat.

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Hand On Review: Xplore Technoloigies BobCat Rugged Tablet

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Other ports on the Bobcat include a RS232 serial Ready Port, headphones/speakers mini-jack stereo port plus DC power input.

Connectivity: Of course for field engineers to get the most out of any mobile computing device connectivity is absolutely key.

The Bobcat has a number of integrated communications solutions embedded within it including an 802.11ac wireless LAN (wi-fi) receiver, which not only allows the device to connect to both 2.5GHz and 5GHz but also delivers enhanced speeds.

The tablet also comes with an optional 4G LTE mobile broadband receiver meaning even out of Wi-fi range as long as there is mobile coverage the device is capable of connecting at the fastest speeds available in any given area.

There is also integrated GPS with an accuracy of 2.5 metres and Bluetooth 4.0 so the device can be paired with other tools being used by your field engineer such as in cab communications or smart watches etc.

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which can be useful tools when updating parts inventory.

Ruggedity:

particularly well protected should the device be accidentally dropped.

The tablet also comes

In addition to this a clever design which incorporates raised corners the screen remains protected whilst for further reassurance there is also the option of upgrade of an Armortech Screen Guard.

with an optional 4G LTE

Battery Life:

mobile broadband receiver

Finally the battery life of the Bobcat is certainly capable of lasting an engineer throughout their day.

As one would expect the Bobcat meets the standards of a fully rugged tablet.

meaning so even out of Wi-fi range as long as there is mobile coverage the device is capable of connecting at the fastest speeds available in any given area.

In addition to this there is both a front facing and rear camera alongside integrated speakers and microphone which allows for video conversations between engineers for knowledge sharing etc.

With a MIL-STD 810G certification the tablet is both water and dust resistant and can operate in a range of temperatures ranging from -20°C through to 60°C which should cover all but the absolute extreme of field service environments.

Finally the Bobcat also has options for including Near Field Communications (NFC) reading capability and Barcode scanning both of

The Bobcat is also capable of surviving a 5 foot drop and thanks to it’s lightweight rugged magnesium midframe the LCD and electronics are

The full shift battery life is listed as up to 8 hours however, the Bobcat has a hot swappable battery and with additional external battery options the tablet is comfortably capable of making it through a 20 hour day .

Conclusion: The Bobcat offers a good combination of being a good looking tablet that is up to the daily grind of most field service applications.

It is well designed with intuitively placed buttons and a good amount of I/O ports and support for peripheries.

The obvious weakness of the Bobcat is in it’s processing power lagging behind its most obvious competitors, however it’s competitive pricing makes it a very good option for those companies whose engineers needs’ are not particularly CPU intensive.

Mobile solutions in the field Mobile technology has significantly improved productivity and efficiency in the way mobile workforces operate. Whether in harsh environments or remote rural areas, the ability to access customer records and be directed to the next appointment or task is crucial.

Datalogic, Honeywell and Zebra mobile computers, available from Varlink, are designed for harsh outdoor environments. With IP ratings up to 67, they are ultra-rugged and can function in hot, cold and wet environments and provides protection against inevitable drops.

Equipped with wireless communication is an essential tool for mobile workers. Speed and bandwidth brings the

desktop to the mobile worker allowing them to access relevant systems, records and to provide a quicker response time and a higher level of customer satisfaction.

Varlink offer a full range of mobile computers for use out in the field, including the Datalogic ELF and Lynx, Honeywell Dolphin 70e, Honeywell CN51 and Zebra WAP4 and Omnii XT15. All devices are equipped with wireless connectivity, a full shift battery life and IP ratings making them ideal for field service applications.

For more information call 01904 717180 or visit www. varlink.co.uk

Connect with us: @VarlinkLtd

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Mobile Computing & EPoS Distribution

Expert View: Nick Frank, Frank Partners

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The re-invention of manufacturing is profoundly changing field service As the rapid evolution of traditional manufacturing continues the idea of field service as an entity must also change fundamentally writes Nick Frank...

“I

am still making order out of the chaos of reinvention” said novelist John Le Carre as he penned another cold war spy thriller.

Many would say the same is true of manufacturing today. Gone are the days when a manufacturer simply made the product, delivered it to the customer, sometimes supplied some parts & services, and then moved onto the next sale.

In today’s unpredictable world, this model is fast becoming unsustainable.

Accelerated by the chaos of the financial crisis and propelled by the industrial internet, many businesses are moving beyond this traditional notion of manufacturing. No longer do they just ‘make stuff’, they provide services such as financing, maintenance programmes, lifecycle consulting or even outcome orientated service contracts.

Complex equipment manufacturers are leading the way in evolving ever more strategic relationships with their clients, as they deliver their technology as a service outcome rather than stand-alone product. Why is this important? It’s not just that product transaction orientated business models are being replaced by those centred on relationships, outcomes and service.

But that to achieve this re-invention, manufacturing must overcome a severe skills shortage! Without people and skills, all the advances in technology and thinking will stagnate.

Companies need to attract a completely new talent pool into their industry. One that is technically and socially more diverse and which has many of the marketing, customer experience and media skills found in the FMCG and financial sectors.

If manufacturing is re-inventing itself, so must the services back-office. Much has been written around how IoT and analytics will change the nature of field service in terms of efficiency, transparency and customer relationship management. All this is true, but more profoundly as the product/service boundary blurs towards solutions, so the idea of field service as an entity must fundamentally change. Rather than being perceived as a ‘bolt on’ entity fixing customer problems, field service must be integrated into

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the business. As this happens it too must broaden its skills set, outlook and relationships, especially in the areas engineering, sales and other service back-office operations. As connectivity and data become more available in real time, so increasingly problems can be solved centrally.

As service thinking becomes more embedded in manufacturing businesses, so even self-healing technologies may be introduced into product design. One can see that this will require a completely different approach as to how service organisations are perceived and managed.

“Complex equipment manufacturers are leading the way in evolving ever more strategic relationships with their clients, as they deliver their technology as a service outcome rather than a standalone product.”

It is logical that in order to provide seamless outcomes and experiences to the customer, organizations will become much more integrated, between, centralized technical support, the machine itself, local support, 3rd parties and parts and sales/relationship management. Exactly how this happens will depend on the business models being supported.

For example in the Asia-Pacific market a leading supplier of industrial robots see their mix of Field / Central services swinging from 60/40% to 40/60% as they increasingly integrate remote services into their solutions. There are companies in the defence industry who have their service team located in situ on warships where they are contracted to provide availability. These are perhaps the more extreme examples of the moment, but one can clearly see that there is a link between the technologies, the contractual relationship with the customer, and the organisation of the service organisation.

We we will also see field service and centralised support organization being closer to the sales teams. Just look at the emphasis we have seen in recent years on the Trusted Advisor roles and the discussions of how field service as one of the major customer touch-points, has a significant impact on customer experience. Trying to balance relationship skills with technical problem solving is a real challenge for the industry.

The bottom line is that as manufacturing re-invents itself, so field service as an integral part of most service offerings will become a significant part of the companies growth strategy. How this will happen is difficult to tell, because we are still in the early stages of a manufacturing revolution.

However, this re-invention of manufacturing is exciting from two perspectives. It means that a more diverse and broader skills set must be attracted into industry. And secondly that field service itself will need to adapt to evolving product technologies and business models bringing new challenges and opportunities for its people.

To be part of this re-invention process, Service Leaders can follow a simple 3 point plan: 1.

2.

3.

Undertake a strategic re-evaluation of the customer /industry supply chain to identify how services can contribute to sustainable business growth.

Experiment with and adopt connectivity technologies to discover the cost and business model benefits.

Constantly look at how other businesses are adapting. This Outside-In perspective will speed up your adoption of innovation and can be gained in many ways. You can achieve this through not only reading publications such as Field Service News, but by joining networks such as that offered by ‘The Manufacturer’ to explore the role of Manufacturing Services in industry (www.

MSTLN.com), The Service Community (www. service-community.uk) or the servitization courses for industry by the Aston Business School, UK.

Expert View: Uri Pintov, Clicksoftware

Wearable Technology: Fashion, Smart Clothes & the Future of Wearables Uri Pintov of ClickSoftware takes a look at the role Wearable Technology could play in field service...

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icture this: A customer service representative is helping an irate customer on the phone and becoming flustered and frustrated. Rather than hearing about the incident after the interaction has escalated, customer service managers are able to step in and offer assistance because they have access to the rep’s vital signs and health signals.

Or, imagine one of your fleet drivers becoming tired and falling asleep at the wheel and a fleet manager having the ability to talk him through getting to a rest area safely, thanks to having access to his health signals. All of this, and more, is possible, thanks to wearable technology.

The Rise of Wearable Technology Wearable technology is nothing new, but its applications to the enterprise and customer service are just now being realized in a major way.

A 2013 study on wearable tech from the Centre for Creative and Social Technology at Goldsmiths, University of London, showed that about 33% of U.S. and U.K. adults found that wearable tech had helped their career development. Other research from Human Cloud at Work showed that wearable tech increases job satisfaction by 3.5% and boosts employee productivity by 8.5%.

As reported for RealBusiness by Shane Schutte, lead researcher Dr. Chris Bauer sees the results of the study showing “the potential power and application of wearable devices in the workplace from employee biometric CVs to organisational real-time executive dashboards for resource allocation…. Using data generated from the devices, organisations can learn how human behaviors impact productivity, performance, wellbeing, and job satisfaction.”

Wearable technology adoption will increase as people and companies see the benefits of it, including how it improves an individual’s life or a company’s performance. Nigel Beighton, UK CTO of Rackspace, sees the need for individuals and businesses to analyze the data from wearable technology “and understand the wider context surrounding the data, such as the weather location, posture, even temperature and mood of the individual. By focusing on the data as well as

the devices, wearable technologies can provide meaningful insights that can be used to improve performance and satisfaction. Essentially wearable tech and big data go hand-in-hand.”

Smart Clothes as a Tool for Business Using smart clothing to track employees’ vital signs and health signals is a reality now. According to Wearable Technologies, 2015 is a “banner year” for the emerging smartwatch and smart clothes market. One of the most important features of smart clothes and smartwatches is their healthrelated sensors and monitors that rack vital signs.

Smart clothes provide real-time feedback of the wearers’ vitals and health and connect to apps to deliver the information to smartphones and computers. Most smart clothes can monitor heart rate, breathing rate, sleeping patterns, calories burned, intensity of activity, temperature, and heart beat.

While most of the smart clothes are in the health and fitness market today, they are starting to be available for the healthcare industry for hospitals and personal care facilities and for businesses that want to monitor their employees.

Smart Clothes and the Mobile Workforce More companies and organisations are going mobile, and there are more field workers and independent contractors than ever before relying on mobile devices and mobile apps. According to a CIO article, a recent Apperian survey of organisations found that more than 70% of respondents plan to equip more than 1,000 users with mobile apps and 1/3 are deploying mobile apps to more than 5,000 users in the next two years.

Additionally, Gartner predicts that 50% of employers will require employees to supply their own device for work and reports that 38% of companies will stop providing devices to workers by 2016. As more companies adopt bring your own device (BYOD) policies, it becomes crucial for the mobile workforce to be able to charge their devices quickly and easily while on the go.

Wearable technology and smart clothes are solving

this problem, as designers are becoming inspired by flexible solar panels and are creating clothing and accessories that power and accommodate handheld devices. We have found a few designers who are creating everything from shirts, to jeans, to ski jackets, to winter gloves that could make being part of a mobile workforce easier than ever before.

Wearable Solar – Dutch fashion designer Pauline van Dongen is designing lightweight wired garments that include solar panels so the wearer can charge a smartphone. Her designs charge smartphones up to 50% when worn in the sun for an hour. She collaborated with Christiaan Holland from the HAN University of Applied Sciences and solar energy expert Gert Jan Jongerden on the Wearable Solar project, to integrate photovoltaic technology into the clothing.

WTFJeans – One company that accommodates smartphone users is WTFJeans. With smartpockets that give wearers easy access to their smartphones and clean the phone screens, WTFJeans also include EMF shields to reflect cell phone radiation.

Zegna Solar Ski Jacket - Clothier Ermenegildo Zegna teamed with Interactive Wear to create “the world’s first ski jacket powered by solar energy.” The jacket has solar cells embedded in its collar to convert sunlight into renewable power that wearers can use to fully charge their smart phone, iPod, or other mobile device. The collar is removable so that it can be used as a power source even when you’re not out in the elements.

Agloves – It is nearly impossible to use smartphones and tablets when wearing gloves, since typical gloves are not compatible with the touch screens on mobile devices. Agloves offer a variety of gloves, including the Grip Touch, Sport, and Natural, that are constructed with real silver for warmth and high conductivity, so that all ten fingers are conductive for use with any touchscreen device.

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fieldservicenews.com

Community Service The UK not-for-profit group The Service Community, run by service professionals with the simple aim of sharing knowledge within the community, continues to go from strength to strength with their latest conference held at Aston Business School. Community member Chris Farnarth of Allocate Software gives us his thoughts on how the day went...

The Service Community’s Aston University Special Event focused on “Big Data” attracted over thirty guests to participate in a lively forum of discussion with a range of academic and practitioner based perspectives.

The host for this Big Data themed event was Aston University generously made available to us by Community favourite Professor Tim Baines and Jill Forrest.

The Community continues to thrive with over 140 registered members and each event drives more involvement and new participation. Four key note presentations were delivered offering insight into the ubiquitous subject matter of Big Data.

Aston Business School’s Dr Andreas Schroeder opened with a truly engaging

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and interactive key note presentation that reviewed the role that data plays in developing basic, intermediate and advanced services, in particular the technical, organisational and strategic considerations a company should consider.

In the second key note, Andrew Harrison represented that (big) data is a cost to Rolls Royce and is only turned to value through knowledge by contributing to three areas of their business; i) Creating value potential in the design of a product, ii) Maximising value in the use of product and iii) Refreshing value through a product’s life and recovering value its end of life.

The audience by this stage were truly engaged, challenging perspectives and generating a lively interaction.

The Service Community

Top to Bottom: Andrew Harrison, Rolls Royce, Mark Noble, Inca Digital, Andy Reid, Pitney Bowes,

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The Service Community

Dr Andreas Schroeder, Aston Business School opens the sessions with his keynote presentation

1985 - 2015 30

Andy Reid energised us further with another perspective of Big Data and how Pitney Bowes has used it with great effect.

Andy set the scene explaining the “4 V’s” of Big Data; Volume, Velocity, Variety and Veracity and went on to demonstrate how Pitney Bowes is developing infrastructure to make its own operations more efficient through its use of data, as well as offering location services that can help company monetize their big data.

Our final key note was presented by Mark Noble of Inca Digital who told his story of how using the data already generated by their high tech digital printers, they were able to dramatically improve the productivity of their Service organisation.

The key lesson being it’s not the quantity of data that is important, but

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knowing what to do with it!

For example he showed how by combining 3 key indicators of machine performance, his team were able to prioritise service actions on the worst performing machines.

Thus saving money and improving customer satisfaction.

Once again, The Service Community delivered on its objectives. The content of the meetings is the life-blood of The Community, followed closely by the generosity of participants to offer facilities and key skills such as PR, marketing promotion or other services that will keep The Service Community alive.

To this point, the next event is proposed for March 2016 – date and location to be confirmed.

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Lone workers: managing Their risk For the field worker being alone on the job is often just part of a days work, but the lone worker is open to far more risk than regular staff. Field Service News Editor, Sharon Clancy looks at what can be done to ensure our lone workers remain safe while on the job...

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any mobile employees are working alone or in environments that make them vulnerable.

The potential safety risks are present not just in hazardous workplaces as oil installations or construction sites; workers can be at risk working unsocial hours in office building, on emergency call outs to domestic properties.

Safety policies and guidelines should reflect the specific risks of mobile workers, demonstrate that steps have been taken to minimise those risks and that management systems are in place to monitor compliance with safety rules.

For mobile service technicians, those risks include driving their vehicles between jobs.

“If people in your company use vehicles for work, then you have a legal responsibility to ensure their safety, points out Giles Margerison, UK salesdirector, TomTom Telematics.

“The law is really clear if someone is driving for business purposes, regardless of who provides the vehicle – whether it’s their own vehicle, hire, rented, leased, bought, or bought by the company.”

“Once you have given someone an instruction for work, whether it’s just popping down the shops

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for a pint of milk or to an appointment or a job or a site, you are responsible for their safety and their behaviour.”

Duty of Care: legal obligations Employer legal obligation on Duty-of-Care and Health and Safety will vary from countryto-country. In the UK, for example, the 2007 Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act introduced in addition to corporate liability the concept of personal liability of directors and board members for any proven negligence, part of an EU-wide initiative to improve worker safety.

Other legislation such as the EU Working Time Directive also impacts on duty-of-care obligations.

For service organisations there are two key areas of duty of care: one is lone worker protection; the other is risk management of inappropriate of employee behaviour.

Lone worker monitoring Any mobile application or device by default offers more protection to the mobile worker than a paper system where there is no contact with the office between jobs or even all day. Mobile workers equipped with telephones can also be

tracked using cell ID. In difficult or hostile environments managers need confirmation at regular intervals that the employee is safe and well.

Some lone-worker systems are linked to 24hour monitoring centres - individuals who find themselves in a dangerous situation simply press a red alert button on their device.

This additional protection for lone workers can be used as a user buy-in when selling a technology switch to mobile workers, especially in heavilyunionised sectors.

In less dangerous situations, the risk assessment may be that compliance can be demonstrated by tracking personnel and around a site, setting up pre-set intervals when a response is required.

The interval can be set automatically and varied between locations and tasks.

In some systems the worker is sent an SMS message requiring a response confirming everything is OK or arrival, but the latest technology removes the onus on the employee to confirm they are safe. Instead, the RFID and NFC technology used for proof-of-attendance and compliance with service-level agreements is used

“Once you have given someone an instruction for work, whether it’s just popping down the shops for a pint of milk or to an appointment or a job or a site, you are responsible for their safety and their behaviour.”

- Giles Margerison, TomTom Telematics p47

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for duty-of-care monitoring.

“It’s considered more reliable because the monitoring process starts automatically when the worker arrives on site or at a particular area of the site or building - there’s no need for them to send a message to confirm this ,” comments Paul Ridden, managing director for Skillweb.

“Alarms can be raised if a worker fails to arrive at or leave a customer site or complete a task. Specific safety compliance information for that task or site can be incorporated in the RFID tags. “

Risk management Service organisations employ engineers and technicians, not drivers.

However, that does not mean that you can ignore their behaviour at the wheel when driving between jobs.

Potentially unsafe driving behaviour should be part of a risk assessment strategy.

Meeting your Duty of Care does not need to be a burden, points out, Margerison. .

“It just requires process to be in place that monitor’s aspects of your mobile workforce, giving you the data you need so you can foresee any issues. This is not as hard as it sounds with modern fleet management and telematics systems, and you might also be surprised by the bottom line benefits it could bring to your business, he goes on.

“The use of technology really helps because we can manage driver behaviour. Other methods can be used, of course, but technology makes that really very simple, and gives you the right data when you need it. Telematics captures data on vehicle speeds, distances and driving time, as well as hazardous behaviour such as harsh braking and acceleration.

Fed back into the service management software, team leaders can build a picture of each driver’s behaviour, trends within a group of workers and persistence offenders, all without increasing administration costs.

Basic driver behaviour telematics data such as speed and harsh deceleration can even be captured from a mobile device with a GPS and an accelerometer or with a plug-in device - there’s no need for a vehicle installation.

The result is a safer, more efficient workforce and a significantly reduced risk profile. Margerison points out that the ability to demonstrate driver improvements to an insurer could also mean a reversal of the current trend in premium costs.

Keep it simple Skillweb’s Paul Ridden thinks awareness of risks to mobile workers still has some way to go to penetrate those lower-skilled service jobs typically found in facilities management companies. “With the introduction of the Living Wage, those workers are going to cost more, so ensuring, they are as productive as possible, will be key to maintaining profit levels.”

Technology costs have also been a barrier, but smartphones make deploying mobile apps to these workers affordable. Simple apps can help them complete the tasks p48

The definition of a lone worker has changed dramatically. From social workers to delivery drivers, postmen to pest control; lone workers make up almost a quarter of the UK’s working population in the right order and safely. You can prove where they are but you can also use it to monitor their safety. Are cleaners using hazardous chemicals in a safe manner? Using appropriate safety equipment can mean something as simple as using rubber gloves when using cleaning chemicals.”

Monitoring the safety of these employees can have other benefits, he points out Monitoring that only trained employees are allowed to use equipment such as motorised floor polishers correctly, also helps you keep tabs on asset utilisation, he points point.

Geoff Ball, MD of Matrix Telematics said: “The definition of a lone worker has changed dramatically. From social workers to delivery drivers, postmen to pest control; lone workers make up almost a quarter of the UK’s working population, but the nature of their job leaves them open to a unique set of risks that employers need to be aware of.

“While most lone workers will hopefully never experience any problems, to have the peace of mind that there’s someone just at the other end of the line should they need it is a big reassurance for employees and a sensible precaution for employers to take.”

Lone worker monitoring doesn’t have to be complicated, says Ridden.

“Even proactive status checks can be done without it seeming intrusive or Big Brother. You can send a message, and all the worker does is to tap in a pin number to confirm they are OK. Workers do appreciate that it is for their safety. From the manager’s viewpoint, its more reliable than waiting for a remote worker to call in at hourly intervals to confirm they are OK and its documented evidence that health and safety policies have been adhered to.

ClickSoftware provides visibility of your service operations enabling you to master the moment of customer engagement every time. We understand that your customers come first. Our mobile workforce management solutions enable you to deliver a superior customer experience by: ■ Providing clear visibility of your field workers and contractors ■ Improving field efficiency and productivity ■ Reducing operating costs From small businesses to large enterprises, 700,000 field resources around the world are managed

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Southern Comfort for field service leaders...

Sister show to Field Service USA, Field Service Fall brings three days of industry education to the South-East Coast of the USA. Field Service News Editor-in-Chief Kris Oldland flew over to see what the latest hot buttons for the US service industry were…

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eld in Buckhead, the upmarket business region of Atlanta Field Service Fall lived up to it’s billing as one of the key US events in the field service calendar by bringing together some 200 plus senior members of the field service industry across the three day event.

As always with industry events focussing on field service operations, the delegates came from a range of disparate industries including healthcare, manufacturing, telecommunications and more.

Yet despite coming from seemingly different universes, the same pain points were discussed, the same opportunities for improvement of service delivery discovered and the same challenges of implementing such opportunities and overcoming these pain points were at the heart of the conversations.

Kristina Hill, IFS Marketing Manager Enterprise Service Manager commented “As always the WBR field service events bring a great crowd of multiple different verticals together to brainstorm and share thought leadership and discuss pain points” “It brings all sorts of companies together” Hill added “but as different as they are and as different as they run process wise, they are also very similar in their pain points and the issues they face. It’s great to see people working on new initiatives and

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adopting new technology” This sentiment was echoed by John Callen, Support Solutions Manager, NCR who was attending for his seventh time at a WBR Field Service Event.

“Every time I come here I get take aways from each presenter or each conversation I have, that makes me just that little bit better in my role” “Every time I come here I get take aways from each presenter or each conversation I have, that makes me just that little bit better in my role” Callen stated, going on to say “I’ve got about twenty things with stars on them so I can’t possibly implement them all but I’m going to review again tonight and go from there.”

Indeed there was a real sense of community across the three days in Atlanta. Something that

event producers WBR are keen to maintain and build upon.

Jonathan Massoud, Divisional Director & Market Analyst, WBR commented “The feedback that we got was that it is good to bring the community together and here is where they can get help to develop standards that they typically can’t get elsewhere, that they can’t get through benchmarking or through competitors so they can come together here, meet and increase their own community.”

It was this opportunity to discuss challenges amongst his peers that attracted Arnold Benavidez, FSE ETO Manager, Metso Recycling to attend for the first time also.

“One of the reasons I came to this event was to get different perspectives on how other field service organisations are managing their field service activities for their businesses. “ Benavidez commented, “What processes, technologies and strategies are they implementing that have been proven and been successful in the organisations.”

“Quite often I think we try to manage the chaos in our service organisations and we tend to have tunnel vision in just managing our way through that chaos. I wanted to come to this event to make

Event Review: Field Service Fall

observations of what are the possibilities that could improve my organisation and our overall business.”

The conference agenda itself was well balanced with a strong blend of forward looking presentations, case studies detailing how some of the more progressive companies within the industry have made improvements to their own service operations and general insight and opinion from a number of senior figures within the service industry.

One of the topics that dominated a lot of the presentations as well as conversations in the break out sessions was that of IoT. As Massoud explained “One of the things we are hearing about now is the digitization of service in terms of the Internet of Things – what does that mean? Last year we talked about that and people were unsure of how to move forward, now it seems that each of the verticals now have things in place that are addressing that and we are seeing things move forward.”

“For example some organisations are putting in mobile boxes when the product goes out so they can pull data off it and that is just one example of how IoT is effecting the development of their

products and their service and that’s come out this week.“ Callen also highlighted IoT as one of the big topics of the conference saying “I think a lot of the themes that I’ve heard this time around is around the Internet of Things, the way things are pushing forward it makes you think how I can implement this to solve problems of my own?”

“You’ve got to worry about the cost but you’ve also got to worry about the cost of fixing the problem.”

“You’ve got to worry about the cost but you’ve also got to worry about the cost of fixing the problem,” he added However, the talk wasn’t all about tech. The continuing drive towards improving Customer Experience was another frequently heard topic of conversation.

“The real focus still, which is nice to hear, is in

delighting the customers” Hill commented “As customer demand grows and increases and the technology that is out there from a customer perspective makes that demand higher, I think that field service organisations are realising that they have to keep up and then they have to deliver in a way that is going to put the customer first. “ “That’s still a big trend and one of the things that was a big conversation topic is that the customer has to come first and then let the processes be driven by that.” She added.

Expanding further on the topic Massoud added “Customer experience has been top of the line for the last couple of years now in the research we are doing. What we are seeing now is how companies using technology to improve the customer experience.”

“The shift towards having the field tech be more of a consultant in the field, soft skills developing, really jumped out again. I think it is something that the industry has been struggling with for a while but now they are starting to put some things in place and some training in place where they are making headway with technicians. Knowledge bases we’re hearing about all the way up to augmented reality type solutions, which also tie into knowledge management and knowledge p51

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sharing in the field.”

And in fact the absolute star turn of the three days was provided by Augmented Reality solution Help Lightening.

Developed in part by neurosurgeon Bart Guthrie, Help Lightning uses augmented reality to deliver remote guidance. The impact for field service of augmented reality is massive, potentially slashing a phenomenal amount of outgoing costs by allowing experienced engineers to guide local onsite engineers on how to make a fix themselves, instead of having to get the experienced engineer onsite.

A simple, yet highly effective app, with slick delivery and seemingly robust connectivity (the product is capable of working across 3G networks despite being video based) Help Lightening was certainly the star of the show garnering a lot interest.

And with an engaging presentation by Guthrie supported by a constantly busy booth in the demonstration zone of the event ,Help Lightening certainly won a number of fans across the three days including Marty Jost, Director of Technical Services, Hach who commented “The biggest thing for me was seeing the Help Lightening application. It’s simple enough that I want to go back and demo it for my people.”

“People talk about speed and quick resolution, but you can show up quickly and not fix it first time.

So its always weighing the different factors and ensuring that the piece of equipment is getting fixed first time and that the customer is satisfied” Benavidez was also a fan of the augmented reality app stating “I was really impressed with some of the technology, specifically with Help Lightening, we’re coming currently on a second year of a down market in our industry due to the price of steel and a lot of people are looking at services to bring in revenue to make up for the difference, but selling services is difficult, as our p52

Event Review: Field Service Fall

customers tend to want to take care of those type of things on their own, so I think after seeing this technology from Help Lightening this may provide the opportunity to assist our customers who don’t want to pay the premium price of having a highly skilled technician on site but perhaps would be interested in having our technician guide their electrical or mechanical contractors on site to help facilitate some minor repairs.”

Indeed if the general consensus of the attendees of Field Service Fall are a good yardstick to go by then the team at Help Lightening, and Augmented Reality vendors in general could well become the hot ticket in Field Service in the very near future as the technology promises very obvious benefits for customers and field service providers alike.

“I think our customers could really go for that kind of opportunity because we are helping them be more self-sufficient and ultimately that is what they want to do.” Benavidez explained “I felt really confident when I saw that opportunity. I think it is definitely something I’m going to try.” He added.

However whilst IoT, Big Data and Augmented Reality are truly exciting topics quite rightly discussed frequently both in the trade press and at industry events such as this, it is also important not to overlook the fundamental technology such as scheduling and parts management tools that can help us get the right engineer to the right job at the right time, and getting them there with the right tools to do the job first time.

What always fascinates me personally about field service as a topic for conversation is that often whilst we have a natural tendency to focus on how we can harness the latest technology to streamline and improve the productivity of our operations, there still remain fundamental basics that we must implement if we are to meet the expectations our customers demand.

Therefore it was interesting to see that the problem of parts and inventory management was a pain point that continued to surface during the breakout sessions across the three days.

Whilst many of the conversations would have been driven by a series of roundtables hosted

by Aberdeen’s Aly Pinder, the fact that this was an area that resonated with many was a clear indicator of the importance of getting the basics right.

As Deb Geiger, VP Global Marketing Astea commented; “I think there is always an underlying commonality in terms of everybody is trying to optimise be more efficient and reducing those costs but also not at the risk of sacrificing,

“Every one of us is in the same circus we just have different clowns working for us. My problems are the same things as the guy that has the printing press, as the guy that has the medical devices...” customer satisfaction. People talk about speed and quick resolution, but you can show up quickly and not fix it first time.”

“So its always weighing the different factors and ensuring that the piece of equipment is getting fixed first time and that the customer is satisfied.”

“I think everybody is looking to continually optimise, look at their processes – how can they improve how do they optimise their workforce, some are having to do more work with less resources how do they make that happen without overtaxing the technicians.”

Of course what events such as Field Service Fall do is provide an opportunity not only for discovery, and peer networking but also for benchmarking, how your organisation is performing in terms of delivering service. As Callen wryly put it “Every one of us is in the same circus we just have different clowns working for us. My problems are the same things as the guy that has the printing press, as the guy that has the medical devices.”

“Operational wise and personal wise this is a great opportunity to benchmark progress. I’ve seen a lot of the same folks year after year. It’s good to see old friends. Here I’ve got friends that I talk to every year, what did you guys do with this, what did you guys do with that? We talk about problems and situations. And it genuinely helps us see where we are in terms of our own development” This is something that Massoud is equally aware of and very much proud to be part of adding “It’s an opportunity that is unique for this space and you can’t go at it alone.”

‘A lot of guys tell us that when they first come here I’m coming back - it’s good to be part of this community” In that case I guess I’ll see you all next year then.

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Are you up to date with the latest trends in field service?

A selection of the latest resrouces to help you stay ahead of the trends in Field Service. You can find these and more at fieldservicenews.com/category/resources ...

White Paper: Driving Productivity in Field Service Leveraging the power of an integrated scheduling and mobile working solution that reduces travel and idle time, streamlines processes and ultimately increases the number of jobs/deliveries/visits completed per day per field worker can deliver average productivity improvements of 20% and sometimes even higher. This white paper published by Kirona explores how...

eBook: The Service Management Handbook 2015 One of the most detailed and comprehensive resources to be published for the field service industry this year. This excellent eBook covers an exhaustive range of topics to help you get to grips with managing your mobile workforce, improving productivity, increasing efficiency and improving your bottom line. Published by Advanced Field Service and fully revised for 2015.

Case Study: Volvo Construction engineers increase productivity with m2m As field service tools become increasingly Internet based connectivity becomes an ever more significant challenge. We look at how Volvo Construction overcame their connectivity woes…

Video: Industry interviews: Dan Lancaster, Telogis The great and the good of the service management industry came together at this years Service Management Expo held in London’s Exel and Field Service News was at the hear of the action hosting the Field Service Solutions Zone. Here we speak to Dan Lancaster of Telogis about the importance of telematics in field service…

Podcast: Research review – mobility tools in field service Field Service News Editor Kris Oldland and Paul Sparkes of Advanced Field Service discuss the findings of the latest Field Service News research which assessed the mobility tools being used by field service companies today.

White Paper Poor Relations: The danger of overlooking your service CRM Looking at some of the key technologies being used in field service this white paper helps clarify the role of a Service CRM in bringing sales and service closer together and opening the doors to potential missing revenue streams. Written by Kris Oldland, Editor-inChief, Field Service News

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Latest resources

Tip: to get the latest resources sent to your inbox as soon as they are published register for free @fieldservicenews.com/subscribe

White Paper: Forging sales-service partnerships The wall between sales and service activities is crumbling within many companies. Once largely viewed as a cost centre, the role of the service organisation has steadily evolved as companies recognize its potential as a source of new revenues and a valuable tool in strengthening customer loyalty.

White Paper: Customer service belongs in the cloud The Harris Interactive Customer Experience Impact report revealed that 86% of consumers have quit doing business with a company because of a poor customer experience—up 59% in four years. Other research has revealed it takes 12 positive service experiences to make up for one negative experience, whilst 91% of unhappy customers will not willingly do business with the same organization again...

Webinar: Field Service 2020 – Major considerations for field service This webinar looks at two significant issues for field service managers in the next five years. How to harnes the INternet of THIngs and how to deal with the looming crisis of an ageing workforce...

Video: Industry interviews: Des Evans, Aston Business School The shift from traditional manufacturer to fully fledged servitized business was a bold and revolutionary move when MAN Trucks UK made the transition but it ultimately led them to a huge growth spree when the rest of the market was in decline. The man driving that change was Des Evans, former Managing Director of MAN UK and now an Honorary Professor at Aston Business School.

Research report: Cloud, Mobility and Field Service Our latest exclusive research report explores our recent research into field service companies using the Cloud based upon our own independent research. The report also looks at the maturity of the mobile computing technology within field service as well.

Industry interviews: John Cooper, SONY Europe Field Service News spoke exclusively with John Cooper, Head of IT and Workflow Solutions in Sony’s Professional Solutions unit in Europe about the challenges he faces running four separate service operations across a continent and why technology is driving his business forwards...

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Case Study: British Gas Heat Networks

fieldservicenews.com

Tesseract helps British Gas to expand and diversify Service Management Software provider Tesseract is helping UK uilities giant British Gas expand and diversify by optimising service management at its renewable energy division, British Gas Heat Networks...

T

esseract is helping British Gas to increase the volume of its work and expand its offerings by optimising the service management operation at British Gas Heat Networks (BGHN), a growing division of the company specialising in renewable energy sources and cutting edge new methods.

have to enter details onto a spreadsheet and keep looking at it to know what work was coming up.”

Tesseract’s Service Centre 5 (SC5) is used to manage these engineers and subcontractors, looking after both planned and reactive maintenance at customer sites.

Tesseract’s browser-based software can be accessed on all internet-capable devices. Thanks to Tesseract’s Remote Engineer Access (REA), which completely streamlines field service management, BGHN’s engineers can now log in remotely to the Tesseract system from their smart phones, laptops or tablets.

BGHN began its life as Econergy, designing and supplying biomass-heating solutions. Biomass systems – a carbon-neutral solution to the world’s ever-dwindling supply of fossil fuels – rely on heat generated from burning quick-growing, renewable wood instead of gas.

Before the implementation of Tesseract’s service management software, BGHN relied on a predominantly manual, paper-based process to deal with planned and reactive maintenance tasks, plus a modicum of software.

British Gas purchased Econergy in order to diversify, to offer customers a wider choice of energy options, and to explore more renewable energy sources and environmentally friendly heating solutions.

Most of the work was scheduled using Excel spreadsheets. Nothing was live, instant or particularly visible. “We were growing, so we decided we needed better software,” says Kim Dornan, Customer Service Manager of BGHN. “

Biomass heating solutions continue to be the primary focus of the division, which was renamed British Gas Heat Networks in December 2014.

Biomass boilers are provided to anyone who wants them, including private residences, council offices, care homes, schools, rural estates and commercial premises.

Our old paper-based system had become unmanageable, and we decided we needed to implement a service management software package like Tesseract’s, in order to expand further.”

BGHN offers a complete solution, from initial consultation and project development to design and installation to operation and maintenance, courtesy of long-term heat supply and energy management contracts.

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of subcontractors to maintain the installations at its clients’ premises.

In October 2013, BGHN implemented Tesseract’s full SC5 package, utilising the full range of functions, including remote engineer access, stock control, parts centre and reporting.

But where does Tesseract come in?

Now, staff at BGHN do not have to look at spreadsheets to determine what planned maintenance tasks are coming up, or use spreadsheets to log new reactive tasks.

Essentially Tesseract looks after the service and maintenance side of things. Following installation, BGHN relies on in-house engineers and a variety

“When we load a contract onto the Tesseract system, Tesseract now tells us what needs to be done and when,” says Dornan. “Before, we would

They are able to view calls for dispatch, raise parts requests, look at the call history of a site, close down jobs, generate reports and raise same-day invoices.

All of the data they input is live and fed back to the office instantly, allowing for much better visibility. REA also has handy offline capability; data can still be entered even if the internet signal is lost, and will be transmitted to BGHN as soon as the signal is restored.

Thanks to Tesseract’s software, a whole labour-intensive, paper-heavy process has been eliminated from BGHN’s operations. As a result, BGHN has been able to increase the volume and multifariousness of its work.

“Tesseract has enabled us to take on more work, and expand the range of services we offer,” says Dornan.

“We now employ more in-house engineers and look after more clients. And while our specialism is biomass, we have a number of subcontractors we use for specialist gas work and working with different heat pumps. It means we can offer a more expansive and varied service.”

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Expert View: Aly Pinder, Aberdeen Group

What Does a Toddler, a Grandmother, and a Technician have in common?

Mobility is becoming a way of life but be careful you don’t start on a technology journey that will lack the impact you desire writes Aberdeen’s Aly Pinder...

W

hen was the last time you woke up from a night’s slumber and didn’t first check your smart phone or tablet for an update on what you missed over night?

What’s the weather? Is there traffic? Do I have a 9am meeting I am already late for?

This attachment to mobile technology is not just a trend for millennials and their younger cohorts.

From toddlers to grandmas to the field service technicians, mobility is becoming a way of life.

But with this level of ubiquity comes some missteps by service organisations as they look to drive value in these investments.

In order to avoid a technology journey which will lack the impact that top performers achieve, service organisations should keep a few best practices in mind.

Make technology simple for your techs.

The fastest way to achieve zero to low ROI on a technology investment is to have technicians who decide to work around the solution because they are not on board for this IT initiative.

Technicians should be involved in the identification, selection, and deployment of the tools they will have to use as a part of their daily activities.

Being forced to use a tool because the home office said it will drive productivity is not a guarantee of adoption. Technology is no longer a foreign subject for the field, but no one likes to be forced into change.

Open a window from the customer, to the field, all the way to the back office.

Often times the discussion around paper forms and a move to mobile tools surrounds around p58

cost savings, efficiency gains, and the ability to increase turns of the wrench. These are all benefits, but the value of mobility goes well beyond these tangible and low-hanging fruit KPI. Mobility provides a view into the field and each customer interaction.

“Mobile technology is rapidly evolving and it is a very exciting time to be involved in field service as organizations are investing in the latest tools to help their technicians.”

And as organisations continue to jockey with competitors and third party service providers, it is imperative that the service organisation have real time insight into the service experience so adjustments can be made to ensure the customer experience is continuously improved.

Mobility must be an on-going journey, not a onetime IT investment.

Too often, IT road-maps are not created for the service team but instead are reserved the rest of the enterprise.

But as service, assets, and customer relationships become more and more complex, it is important that technology for the service team is an area which receives constant attention, investment, and re-evaluation. This doesn’t mean that this

has to be a cost drain, on the contrary if service technology initiatives follow a clear strategic vision it will avoid the pitfalls of long drawn out implementations which show no ROI.

Find the tools that work for your team.

Mobile technology is an aspect of field service which most mirrors the consumer world when it comes to excitement and ‘cool’ factor. Many service organisations are evaluating and investing in the latest technology around tablets, smart phones, and wearables.

But much like the consumer space, if you haven’t identified a clear need, business value, and implementation strategy to maximize the technology’s use this will be a waste.

I can’t count the number of devices I have hidden away in a closet in my house because after a short period of excitement the tool didn’t actually improve my daily life. Don’t let this happen for your service organization or your field service technicians.

Mobile technology is rapidly evolving and it is a very exciting time to be involved in field service as organisations are investing in the latest tools to help their technicians. But organisations must remain focused on a clear strategic vision which maximises the value of mobility while also ensuring that this is part of an on-going improvement model.

If this approach is taken, organisations will find that not only will their field teams have the tools that help them navigate the 21st century but they will also be able to deliver exceptional service to customers.

Enabling your organisation to improve

Kirona’s leading field service software solutions enable your organisation to improve efficiency, productivity, customer service, field worker visibility, management insight and reporting, as well as reducing costs.

Trusted by over 35,000 field based workers each day

www.kirona.com

info@kirona.com

01625 585511

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